Commercial surrogacy: Woman, live-in partner arrested in Chennai
CHENNAI : A 26-year-old woman and her live-in partner were arrested by Teynampet police on Thursday on the charges of wrongly claiming to be a couple so that the woman could become the surrogate mother for another couple. She had allegedly promised to carry a baby for Rs 3 lakh.
As per the Surrogacy Act 2021, practising commercial surrogacy is banned. The issue came to light when G Radhika and her live-in partner K Gunasekaran, claiming to be Radhika’s estranged husband Gopi, appeared before a medical board at the Directorate of Medical Science office on Thursday. Officers became suspicious as Gunasekaran couldn’t answer their questions and they lodged a complaint.
Police said a few weeks ago, a woman named Sasikala approached Radhika and offered her Rs 3 lakh to become the surrogate mother for a couple in the city. Radhika accepted the offer and created a fake Aadhaar card for Gunasekaran in Gopi’s name. The Surrogacy Act mandates that surrogate should be a relative of the couple opting. That condition was also not met in this case.