The Kerala High Court has directed the Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services to grant 15 days leave to a life convict lodged at the Central Prison, Viyyur, to undergo fertility treatment under In Vitro Fertilisation/Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (IVF/ICSI) to have a child.
The court passed the order on a petition filed by his wife. The convict’s wife sought parole for her husband who had been undergoing imprisonment for the past 7 years to undergo treatment for begetting a child through the IVF/ICSI procedure. The wife, a teacher, sought the directive as the authorities refused to grant him three months’ parole for fertility treatment. Her husband’s presence was highly necessary for three months for the effective treatment, she said in her petition.
The court observed that when a wife came before the court with a request that she wants to have a child with her husband who is undergoing imprisonment in the Central Jail, the court cannot ignore the same on technicalities. Conviction and sentence in criminal cases is mainly to reform and rehabilitate the offenders. The State and society want to see the convict coming out of jail after rejuvenation as a reformed man/woman who will be part of society. A person who has undergone a sentence in a criminal case need not be treated as a different person when he comes out. He has every right to lead a decent life just like any other citizen, the court added.