| New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered that trials in sex-determination offences under the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act be wrapped up by all courts within six months. The court also held the Centre and states guilty of lax implementation of the law leading to a skewed sex ratio in most states.
“The decline in the female child ratio all over the country leads to an irresistible conclusion that the practice of eliminating female fetus by the use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques is widely prevalent in this country,” said a bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra while giving an 11-point directions for strict-implementation of the PNDT Act.
The bench said: “It should be clearly spelt out that female feticide is the worst type of dehumanization of the human race.”
It also found that perpetrators of female feticide also belonged to the educated middle class as there had been no effective supervision or follow up action to achieve the objective of the Act.
The bench said pre-natal diagnostic centres, genetic clinics, genetic counseling centres, genetic laboratories, ultrasound clinics, and imaging centres have mushroomed across the country urgently needing monitoring of their activities. “Their functioning is not being properly monitored or supervised by the authorities under the Act or to find out whether they are misusing the pre-natal diagnostic techniques for determination of sex of fetus leading to feticide,” the court said while issuing the directions. |