NEW DELHI: Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G) VK Saxena on Monday approved the constitution of the District Medical Board (DMB) in all 11 districts of the national capital to deal with matters related to surrogacy.
The approval has come under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, notified by the Centre earlier, Raj Niwas officials said. The Act, notified by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on December 25, 2021, mandates DMBs to be a nodal authority for receiving clearance before going ahead with surrogacy procedures.
“A District Medical Board has to be constituted for the purpose of issuing a certificate of medical indication in favour of either or both members of the intending couple or intending woman necessitating gestational surrogacy from a District Medical Board,” the act states.
“No surrogacy or surrogacy procedure shall be conducted, undertaken, performed or initiated without the intending couple possessing a certificate issued by the appropriate authority (district medical board) specifying the need for gestational surrogacy,” it states further.
The DMBs will be headed by the chief medical officer or chief civil surgeon or joint director of health services of the district serving as chairperson. It will comprise the chief gynaecologist and chief paediatrician of the district as its members. Officials said the constitution of the DMBs was kept pending by the Delhi government ever since the regulation was notified by the Central government, which forced intending beneficiaries to approach the courts.
“The approval was pending since central legislation was enacted and notified in December 2021. It took the court of Metropolitan Magistrate on June 25, 2022, and the High Court on July 11, 2022, to nudge the AAP government into constituting DMBs,” a Raj Niwas official said. “A proposal to this effect, approved by the Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, in his capacity as the Health Minister, and endorsed by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has finally been approved by the L-G,” he added.