What should be the citizenship of child born via surrogacy?

The Supreme Court on Thursday that is on Sept 4, 2014 sought response from the Government on issue of citizenship of child born in the country out of surrogacy in which biological parents are foreign nationals but the surrogate mother is Indian.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi also raised the question whether such child can be granted dual citizenship for some limited purpose and asked the center to make its stand clear on this issue.

It said, under the constitution, a child born from an Indian surrogate mother is entitled to Indian citizenship. But if the biological mother is a foreign citizen and the child applies for citizenship of that country.

The concept of dual citizenship for surrogate children born in certain circumstances could be considered and the dual citizenship will give the limited entitlements to such children. Justice Gogoi said to Mehta and posted the case for six weeks.

In traditional surrogacy, women are artificially inseminated with the father’s sperm and then she carries the baby and delivers it for the parents to rise. Traditional surrogate is the biological mother for baby.

  In gestational surrogacy, the IVF (In Vitro Fertilization)  eggs is harvested from mother and fertilized with the sperm of father, and the embryo is placed in uterus of gestational surrogate. Then she carries the baby until birth and she has no genetic ties to the child.