London, Oct 3: A gay couple in Britain has won the right to be recognised as the legal parents of twin boys after the Indian surrogate mother the couple paid to carry the babies disappeared.
The woman, believed to be from Andhra Pradesh, handed over the boys last year to the two men without giving her formal consent to the handover, the Daily Mail reported.
The daily said the couple arranged to pay a clinic in Hyderabad a sum of 17,000 pounds (around $27,000) to become the children's parents under a commercial surrogacy agreement in 2010.
But after the babies were born in India the next year, the surrogate mother did not formally give consent for them to be treated as the British couple's children.
The judge granted the men “parental orders” after hearing that they had taken all “reasonable steps” to find the anonymous donor.
The gay couple, who were not named, have been bringing up the babies since their birth in July 2011.
In 2010, an “anonymous Indian egg donor” was selected and one of the men was the “genetic father”, the daily said.
The judge heard the couple paid for the “entire package of treatment and costs”.
The gay couple's lawyers wrote to the director of the clinic, saying they need the surrogate mother to give consent to granting of parental orders.
After the boys were born, the couple received a document that said the surrogate mother had no objections to the provision of the boys' exit visas.
The couple then left India without the surrogate mother giving signed consent to parental orders.
When one of the men emailed the director of the clinic for the mother's signed consent, they received a package, purportedly from the director, containing a sheet of paper with an “obscene gesture” printed on it.
The couple asked an “inquiry agent” to try to find the surrogate mother, but without success.
