MUMBAI, March 15 -- A Mumbai woman's legal battle to get access to 16 frozen embryos created with her estranged husband has reached the Delhi High Court. The unique 'custodial battle' had raised key legal and ethical questions, as reported by HT in July 2025. In 2022, a couple from South Mumbai, who married the previous year, froze embryos grown from the man's sperm and the woman's ova. But in 2023, their marriage soured. The legal battle over the embryos first reached the Bombay High Court in July last year. The 46-year-old woman, who wished to have a child, wanted the South Mumbai fertility clinic storing the cryopreserved embryos to transfer them to another clinic. Her husband, however, allegedly blocked the transfer. Under the provisions of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021, or the ART Act, the consent of both the contributing partners is required for such a transfer of embryos. In her petition filed on Saturday before the Delhi High Court, the woman stated that her "constitutionally protected right to reproductive choice stands imperilled by a rigid and mechanical interpretation" of two sections of the ART Act. She had sought the transfer of her embryos under section 29 of the ART Act, and urged the court to allow the embryo transfer without the consent of her estranged husband, as required under section 22 of the Act, since their marriage had "broken down irretrievably". She had withdrawn her petition before the Bombay High Court in September, 2025, to approach the National Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and Surrogacy Board in New Delhi, and approached the Delhi High Court after receiving the board's "mechanical rejection" to her plea on February 2. In her petition before the court, filed through advocate Mohini Priya, the woman stated that she "stood deprived of her only realistic opportunity to experience motherhood through her own genetic material" on account of procedural rigidity and the conduct of her spouse, who had allegedly abused and abandoned her. Her petition stated that the husband had "maliciously withheld consent against the backdrop of pending matrimonial and criminal proceedings initiated against him", and held her reproductive future "hostage to his unilateral veto". The petition stated that while section 22 of the ART Act mandates spousal consent for the use of embryos created during marriage for IVF procedures, the statute is conspicuously silent on marital abandonment. "This legislative silence creates a legal vacuum in cases where the marriage has effectively broken down, yet the parties remain formally married," her petition stated. Legally, she stated, hers was a dual dilemma. She said that on one hand, as a childless married woman abandoned by her husband, she is denied access to her own cryopreserved embryos, and on the other, under the prevailing Muslim personal law governing assisted reproduction, IVF treatment is considered permissible only within a valid marital bond, rendering such treatment impermissible upon divorce. Consequently, she "cannot seek dissolution of marriage without permanently forfeiting her only realistic chance at motherhood, nor can she proceed as a married woman due to the obstructive conduct of her husband, rendering her completely helpless". She contended that it was "manifestly paradoxical" that while the ART Act enabled single women to independently access ART services, the same statutory framework created "insurmountable barriers" for women in a broken marriage. "A woman outside marriage is treated as autonomous and competent to decide her reproductive future; a woman within a broken marriage is rendered contingent upon the will of a spouse who may have abandoned or harmed her. Such an interpretation inverts constitutional logic," the petition stated. She also stated her husband had a child from his previous marriage. His refusal to cooperate after having fulfilled his own desire for parenthood, she said, "results in disproportionate and deeply gendered harm". She also said that in the hope of conception, she had already undergone invasive medical procedures, including a major uterine surgery in February 2024, at her own expense. She has sought the urgent intervention of the court citing her advancing age and narrowing fertility window. She has urged the court to allow her to proceed with the transfer of her embryos to another clinic and their implantation in her womb, without the mandatory consent of her husband. She has also sought a direction to the National ART and Surrogacy Board to approve the transfer of embryos in a time-bound manner. The woman also urged the court to read down two sections of the ART Act or direct the national board to suggest amendments to them in cases of marital desertion, but not divorce. Her petition is expected to be heard by the court in the next couple of weeks....