The Supreme Court of India recently declined to quash criminal proceedings against a Gurugram-based radiologist accused of involvement in illegal sex determination, observing that female foeticide reflects deep-rooted discrimination against women and the girl child.
A bench comprising Justices Manoj Misra and Ujjal Bhuyan, in a judgment dated February 23, refused to grant relief to the accused.
The court noted that discrimination against women, particularly against girl children, remains widespread in several parts of the country and that female foeticide represents a stark expression of this social problem.
The case arose from a 2015 complaint received by the district appropriate authority-cum-civil surgeon in Gurugram, alleging that a doctor was operating an illegal sex-determination racket.
Acting on the complaint, the chairperson constituted a three-member team with support staff to carry out a raid and verify the allegations.
According to the complaint, a decoy patient was taken to a diagnostic facility where an ultrasound examination was conducted. It was alleged that a doctor agreed to determine the sex of the foetus for a fee of ₹25,000 and indicated that the appellant radiologist would perform the ultrasound. The complainant further claimed that the radiologist conducted the procedure.
Following the raid, the police registered an FIR and later sought the radiologist’s discharge on the grounds that no incriminating material had emerged during the investigation.
However, in 2018, the district appropriate authority initiated separate proceedings under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994. This led to a summoning order by a Judicial Magistrate First Class, which the Punjab and Haryana High Court subsequently declined to quash, Indian Express reported.
The Supreme Court acknowledged procedural irregularities in the search of the hospital, noting that the decision to conduct the search had been taken unilaterally by the chairperson instead of collectively by the district appropriate authority, as required under Section 30 of the PCPNDT Act.
However, the bench clarified that even if the search was procedurally flawed, the material seized during the operation could not be rejected outright and could still be considered, subject to rules on relevance and admissibility of evidence.
The court also took note of discrepancies found during the police investigation in the maintenance of mandatory records, pointing out that the PCPNDT Act provides for complaint proceedings in such cases.
It emphasised that the law places a duty on persons conducting ultrasonography on pregnant women to maintain complete and accurate records, and that any deficiency or inaccuracy amounts to a statutory violation.
In the present case, the bench observed that there was prima facie material suggesting that the appellant had conducted the ultrasound on the pregnant woman.
The court held that whether he complied with record-keeping requirements and whether there was any unlawful disclosure of the foetus’s sex were matters that needed to be examined at trial. On this basis, the bench concluded that the proceedings could not be terminated at the threshold and declined to quash the complaint.