On Monday, the Telangana high court issued notices to the state government and health authorities asking them to explain as to how and why several illegal sex determination scanning labs were still operating and flourishing in Greater Hyderabad area.

A bench of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A Abhishek Reddy was handling a PIL, which the court took up on the strength of a letter written by Justice P Naveen Rao. The judge wrote the letter after going through a report in a vernacular newspaper that had highlighted the widespread practice prevailing in the twin cities.

Justice Naveen said as per media reports that illegal sex determination labs are thriving in the city. He further said that this was not possible without the active involvement of officials in the government departments. In his letter to the judicial registrar of the high court, he underlined the fact that the matter has all the ingredients to be taken up as a PIL.

The bigger issue was that parents were terminating the pregnancy once they were told that the fetus in the womb was a daughter. To prevent this inhuman practice, the central government had brought Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994, to prevent tests about knowing the sex of the fetus and also to inform the same to the parents.

The Supreme Court had directed states to map all the registered and unregistered ultrasonography clinics and had even asked the states to set up special cells to monitor the functioning of these clinics. It had also asked Chief Justices of the high courts to periodically monitor the functioning of these clinics.

Chief Justice Chauhan agreed with Justice Naveen’s disagreement and took up the matter. The bench gave four weeks to the government to file its stand on the sex determination labs.

Source: ET Healthworld