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An advertisement offering treatment to those who “want a boy” has landed two practising doctors in jail with the local magistrate holding them guilty of violations under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act of 2003
Magistrate R V Jambkar of the Dadar Shindewadi court in Mumbai has held two doctors guilty of four violations under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act of 2003, sentencing them to a three-year jail term. Both women were out on bail since the criminal case against them began five years ago. Homoeopath Chhaya Tated, who is based in Aurangabad, used to practise at Dr Shubhangi Adkar’s Shree Maternity and Nursing Home in Dadar, Mumbai, on two Sundays a month. The doctors published an advertisement in a weekly magazine, in November 2004, offering special treatment to those who “want a boy”. The complaint against the two was filed in November 2004 by a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officer after a health officer visited and inspected the maternity home in Dadar, based on the advertisement. In the ad, that went under the heading ‘Want a (baby) boy?’, Tated described herself as a ‘foreign-returned doctor offering specialised treatment’ at Shree Nursing Home, and in Aurangabad. The court not only found the two doctors guilty but dismissed their plea for leniency and sentenced them to the maximum punishment permitted under the Act -- a three-year jail term. It also imposed the maximum possible fine of Rs 10,000. The magistrate held that both women were doctors and “reputed persons in the society” and “when such persons commit offences that are not only heinous but against the existence of society they are not entitled to leniency, because by their act they have encouraged determination of sex of a female foetus to prevent such pregnancy”. The BMC, represented by advocate Zarir Engineer, built its case with four witnesses, including one to prove the advertisement which was the main offence. The nursing home was not registered either, as required under the PCPNDT Act, and it had no detailed records of the “genetic counselling” provided. Nor did it display a board to warn against tests to detect the sex of a child. Section 22 of the PCPNDT Act deals with prohibition of advertisements relating to pre-conception and prenatal sex determination. It prohibits any person, organisation, genetic counselling centre or clinic that has an ultrasound scanner or other technology to determine the sex of a foetus from issuing any advertisement towards sex determination or sex selection before conception. No person can advertise in any manner about the pre-conception selection of sex by any means, scientific or otherwise. Any violation attracts a maximum of three years in jail and a fine of up to Rs 10,000. Although India’s infant mortality rate (IMR) has seen a dip from last year, the current IMR of 53 deaths per 1,000 live births is still a long way from the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) target. According to the latest sample registration system (SRS) figures, 2008’s IMR is just two deaths less than that of 2007 (55 deaths per 1,000 births). In 2006, the IMR was 57 deaths per 1,000 births. “There has been a marginal decrease in the IMR in 2008 than the previous year, as was stated by the government in this October’s SRS bulletin. Compared to the period 2005 to 2006, when the IMR declined by only one (death) per 1,000 live births, this is an improvement,” Priya Subramanian of Save the Children said. “However, such gradual improvements will not bring the IMR down to 30 by 2012, which the NRHM aims to achieve. Even at the present rate, India will reach an IMR of 30 per 1,000 live births only after 11-and-a-half-years, that is by 2021,” she added. According to Subramanian, if India wants to achieve the fixed NRHM target it has to do a lot more. Source: http://www.echarcha.com, November 2009
IANS, October 29, 2009
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