Gujarat govt wants to jail doctor for PNDT Act offence

AHMEDABAD: The state government has approached

Gujarat high court

seeking jail term for a practising gynaecologist, who was found guilty of not maintaining records of sonography conducted on a pregnant woman under the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994.

A magisterial court had punished the doctor with one-year jail term, but a district court had quashed the punishment earlier this year.

According to case details, Dr Mukesh Thummar’s clinic in Junagadh was raided by district health authorities in 2005 to find that certain records, which are mandatory, were not maintained in breach of rules. The clinic staff and doctor did not fill up information about a pregnant woman in forms after sonography was conducted on her to check the foetus’s condition. Thummar was charged for violation of PNDT Act and put on trial.

In August 2016, a magisterial court found Thummar guilty of violation of the law and sentenced him to one-year jail term besides imposing Rs 5,000 fine. The court observed that the PNDT Act should be strictly followed in its letter and spirit in order to reduce the sliding sex ratio by arresting female foeticide. The court also said that to stop prenatal sex determination, exemplary punishment should be awarded to send a signal that any violation of this law would not be taken lightly.

However, a district court in Junagadh found the magisterial court’s decision “harsh and hasty”. The court accepted the lower court’s finding that Dr Thummar was at fault in maintenance and preservation of record, which is a must under the PNDT Act. But the district court took a lenient view in this case that the doctor had examined a diabetes patient, who had conceived after 16 years, to check whether the child to be born was not defective. There was no charge of sex determination.

The district court concluded that the one-year imprisonment was harsh and disproportionate, and the doctor should not go to jail merely for not maintaining record. In April 2018, the district court quashed the imprisonment order, but upheld the fine of Rs 5,000.

The state government has now urged the HC to quash the district court’s order and restore the jail term awarded by the magisterial court in order to set an example to curb female foeticide.