Chandigarh, March 28
Holding that a doctor conducting sex determination tests was indulging in a very serious crime, a Palwal court has sentenced Dr Anil Sabhani and his technician, Mr Kartar Singh, to two years of simple imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5000 each.

The duo were pronounced as guilty in a case under Pre Natal Diagnostics Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994, on March 25, and the quantum of punishment awarded to them was pronounced today. The Sub Divisional Magistrate also ruled that in case of default of payment of fine, the convicts would further undergo simple imprisonment for three months.

This is the first instance in Haryana, of conviction under the above mentioned Act. It comes as a shot in the arm for social activists and health officials who have been working to create awareness and correct the skewed sex ratio in the state.

It was in the year 2001 that a team of the Health Department had sent a decoy customer to Dr Anil Ultrasound for getting a sex determination test done. Upon receiving a fee from the decoy customer, the doctor had disclosed the sex of the foetus. A representative of the Faridabad chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) was also taken along for the raid, and the entire episode was secretly videoggraphed, informed Dr R C Aggarwal, Civil Surgeon, Faridabad, who was then the nodal officer for planning the raid.

Pronouncing the judgement, the Judge observed: “The convicts do not deserve any leniency. It is due to the illegal acts of persons like the convicts, that the sex ratio is declining day by day... The day is not far when there will be no girl child around. The convicts had orally conveyed the sex of the foetus to the patients, but due to a check on such illegal acts, persons like the convicts have worked out their own code for sex determination.”