Court refuses to release machine used for sex test

NEW DELHI: Sex-determination techniques used before childbirth are discriminatory towards the female sex and affect the dignity of women, a court said while refusing to hand over an ultrasound machine to a city doctor.

“Nowadays techniques are also being developed to select the sex of a child before conception. These practices and techniques are clearly discriminatory to the female sex and affects the dignity and status of the women,” observed additional sessions judge Smita Garg.

On March 2, 2016, following a tipoff about pre-natal sex-determination tests, a special team carried out a raid at a clinic in west Delhi’s Rajouri Garden and seized an ultrasound machine along with other machines and the doctor was booked under the provisions of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC & PNDT) Act.

Garg was hearing the doctor’s plea against a magisterial court order which prohibited him from retrieving his ultrasound machine and a computer CPU. The magistrate court had shown apprehension over the machine being used again for sex determination, though the investigating officer had no objection to releasing the machine after having sent the hard discs for forensic analysis. The doctor, through his lawyer, argued that the machine was very expensive and sensitive, and if allowed to remain in the custody of police, it will turn into nothing but scrap.

The additional sessions court, however, opined that in the cases where the doctors indulge in sex-determination and misuse the modern technology, the prevention of crime is best achieved by seizing the machine so that repetition of such crime is curbed.

“The power of the magistrate to seal the machine is the most potent weapon in case of prevention and further occurrence of the offence and such power should be used in the interest of general public. In case the seal is opened, the accused is facilitated to repeat the crime and therefore, the accused can not be allowed to use his machine until the trial is over,” the additional sessions court said.