In H Siddaraju & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors. (2023), the Karnataka High Court addressed a challenge to Sections 4(iii)(c)(I) and 2(1)(zg) of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, which impose age limits of 50 for women and 55 for men and restrict altruistic surrogacy to genetically related surrogate mothers. The petitioners argued these provisions lacked rationale, particularly in cases like theirs, where the husband was 57 and the surrogate mother was not genetically related. The court introduced a “Triple Test” framework—Genetic, Physical, and Economic—to evaluate the husband’s health, the couple’s physical capacity to care for a child, and their financial ability to secure the child’s future. By directing that the husband must pass this test to obtain an eligibility certificate, the court temporarily relaxed the statutory criteria while deferring the question of constitutional validity to the Supreme Court.
