Hours after Tamil actor Nayanthara and her husband director Vignesh Shivan announced on Monday that they have become parents of twin boys, the Tamil Nadu government said that it will examine whether the couple violated surrogacy laws in India, reported The News Minute.
There is speculation that the couple, who got married in June, had used a surrogate mother. In India, commercial surrogacy has been banned after The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, was passed in December and came into effect on January 25, 2022.
Presently, only altruistic surrogacy is allowed that means the surrogate mother will not get any remuneration or other monetary incentive, except the medical expenses. The surrogate mother also needs to be genetically related to the couple.
“According to norms, those aged 21 years and under the age of 36 can donate oocytes [ova or eggs],” Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian said on Monday, reported NDTV. “We presume this could have been done that way... director of health services will be asked to examine if it was done according to norms.”
It is possible that Nayanthara, as a single woman, or the couple, as partners, could have opted for surrogacy when commercial surrogacy was allowed, according to The News Minute.
The new rules also state that other than a couple who have a “medical indication necessitating gestational surrogacy”, only an Indian woman who is a widow or divorcee between the age of 35 to 45 years can opt for surrogacy.
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