E-Paper
Madras HC favours TN govt in fertility centre case
In June, police in Erode district, arrested the girl’s mother and stepfather (who received ₹20,000 during each of the visits) , a woman who acted as a middle agent (and received ₹ 5000 per visit as brokerage commission)
In a win for the state government, the Madras high court on Friday upheld the action taken by the health authorities to seal the hospital where a girl, 16, illegally sold her oocyte ( also called the “egg”).
The first bench comprising chief justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy set aside an earlier order of a single judge Abdul Quddhose in favour of Sudha Hospitals in Erode. The hospital had moved the court first against their closure.
On July 21 they had received a favourable order when justice Abdul Quddhose had directed the Tamil Nadu government to unseal the hospital stating that the state had not provided sufficient reasons for suspending the hospital’s registration. The court did not pass any judgement on whether or not the hospital was guilty.
The state government had challenged this and now the first bench has upheld the action taken by the joint director of medical and rural health services, Dr A Vishwanathan.
The case pertains to a the minor girl’s oocytes being sold illegally to private fertility clinic. In June, police in Erode district, arrested the girl’s mother and stepfather (who received ₹20,000 during each of the visits) , a woman who acted as a middle agent (and received ₹ 5000 per visit as brokerage commission). In her complaint, the girl had said that she was made to donate her harvested eggs eight times since 2017. And that her stepfather has been sexually assaulting her for more than five years. The accused were also slapped with the National Security Act, said health minister M Subramnaian on Thursday.
During the probe, the Tamil Nadu government had found serious violations by six hospitals, four in Tamil Nadu and one each in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. An inquiry by a state-appointed committee headed by the joint director of medical and rural health services, Dr A Vishwanathan, had found that the child was passed off as a married adult by using forged documents, such as a fake Aadhaar, for harvesting her eggs. A man who forged identity documents was the fourth arrest in the case.
In July, health authorities sealed the four hospitals in the state, two branches of Sudha Hospital in Erode and Salem, Ramprasad Hospital in Perundurai, Vijay Srishti Fertility Centre in Hosur for violating ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) under ICMR guidelines, Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 and the Tamil Nadu Clinical Establishment Act. The state had also informed Kerala and Andhra Pradesh governments about the crime and recommended action.
