Govt refers surrogacy bill to select committee of RS

The government on Thursday referred a bill, which seeks to ban commercial surrogacy in India, to a 23-member select committee of Rajya Sabha.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan moved a motion in the upper house of Parliament referring to the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019, to the select committee. The members approved the motion by voice vote.

Rajya Sabha members had on Wednesday sought amendments in certain provisions of the bill like the ones which only allow a close relative to act as a surrogate to couples who have been legally married for at least five years.

The members had expressed their reservation on the condition of a close relative and five years of marriage of commissioning parents.

"I move the motion that Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019... as passed by Lok Sabha be referred to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha consisting of following members," Vardhan said.

The members are Bhupender Yadav, Vikash Mahatme, Saroj Pandey, Ashwani Vaishnav, Jairam Ramesh, Amee Yajnik, A R Biswas, A Navaneethakrishnan, Ravi Prakash Verma, Prasanna Acharya, Ramchandra Prasad Singh, Banda Prakash, K Somaprasad, R S Bharathi, Veer Singh, Vandana Chavan, Anil Desai, Naresh Gujral, Sushil Kumar Gupta, V Vijayasai Reddy, Hishey Lachungpa, Parimal Nathwani and Sambhaji Chhatrapati.

The minister also told the House the panel has been instructed to submit its report to Rajya Sabha by the last day of last week of the next session.

However, Vardhan did not name the chairman of the committee.

Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said that the head of the committee would also attach an annexure in its report, providing details of the number of members attending the meetings of the panel.