A German couple, Jan Balaz and Susan Lohle, are still waiting to take home their twin sons after two years of legal wrangling. The children were caught in citizenship limbo after an Indian surrogate mother gave birth to them in February 2008.

The couple’s homeland has refused the children passports, as German nationality is determined by the birth mother. The case has now reached the highest court in India’s slow-paced judicial system, where it continues to wrestle with the children’s problematic citizenship status.

According to lawyers, a Supreme Court hearing in Delhi on Monday could be instrumental in deciding whether Mr Balaz and Mrs Lohle will be allowed to take their sons, Nikolas and Leonard, back to Germany.

The booming Indian reproductive tourism industry has been encouraged by low-cost surrogate mothers, lax regulations and inexpensive medical procedures.

It is likely that large numbers of infertile Western couples hire Indian surrogates every year, but the case of Nikolas and Leonard shows that things can go terribly wrong.

The Toronto Star last month reported another Indian surrogacy nightmare – involving two Canadian doctors. The couple applied for Canadian passports for twins they believed to be theirs, borne by an Indian surrogate mother. They were shocked to find, after the Canadian high commission ordered a DNA test, that the babies were not related to them at all, rather that they were the product of the fertilised eggs of from another couple who remain unknown.

The doctors went home childless, and the children may grow up in an orphanage.

Increasing numbers of Australian couples seeking Indian surrogates have caused officials to privately voice concerns that situations like these could arise again.

No regulatory body has been put in place to oversee assisted reproduction technology (ART), and despite having over 1000 IVF clinics in India, there are no laws to regulate ART, which includes surrogacy.

Following a series of surrogacy nightmares, legislation has finally been drafted which would make it much more difficult for Australian couples to hire Indian surrogates.

The proposed law would require foreign couples seeking to make an agreement with an Indian surrogate to receive a written guarantee of citizenship for the child from the government of their home country. ~ Sydney Morning Herald May 1