On warpath with health officials, radiologist fears for his life

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 26

Exactly a month after Gurgaon-based radiologist Rajeev Bhatia took local health authorities to court alleging inaction against sex determination rackets flourishing in city, he found himself in jail for 24 days.

Bhatia was arrested on June 12 after local health officials descended on his ultrasound clinic in Gurgaon “catching him red-handed conducting a sex determination test on a decoy patient”.

What followed was a quick FIR for violations of The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PNDT), 1996, arrest and jail. After 19 days of judicial custody, a local sessions court bailed out the doctor citing past High Court judgments that say FIRs are registered for PNDT Act violations.

No court can take cognizance of PNDT Act offences except when the District Appropriate Authority defined by law makes a complaint. In Bhatia’s case that authority was the Chief Medical Officer of Gurgaon, one of the main respondents in the PIL he filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court on May 13, alleging that the health authorities were selectively targeting radiologists for PNDT law violations, and protecting those who were paying up.

The HC on July 21 rapped Gurgaon authorities for arresting Bhatia days after his PIL, and sought an explanation over his arrest. Bhatia meanwhile says he fears for his life and has informed the local courts of the threats he has been receiving after the PIL.

The petition levels grave charges against the district health authorities, citing evidence of alleged “pick and choose policy” to target some radiologists and let others flourish. It seeks a CBI probe into specific instances of “no action despite PNDT law violations”.

The PIL alleges, “PNDT Act is used by the authorities for extracting money. They are selectively targeting radiologists and letting off those who are part of the local nexus.”

The CMO’s reply (in possession of The Tribune) to the HC denies every charge questioning Bhatia’s credentials on the grounds that he has once been convicted of running an ultrasound centre without registration.

Records confirm Bhatia was charged twice for PNDT violations in 2001. He was acquitted in one case; in the other he is in appeal in HC. His take, “There were 800 ultrasound centres in Gurgaon at the time, but I was selectively targeted.”

The HC however, said, past charges against the petitioner don’t prevent him from questioning present violations by others. Revelations made by Bhatia are startling, and the CMO in her affidavit to the HC, has acknowledged government and private hospitals in Gurgaon freely issuing blank referral slips, signed by doctors and stamped by hospitals, to anyone who cares to procure. Proof of blank slips has been submitted to court.

“Any pregnant woman can undergo sex determination using these signed slips. She otherwise needs a real reference from her gynaecologist,” Bhatia says.

After the expose, the Gurgaon CMO ordered hospitals to stop the practice explaining the past lapse as “inadvertent and on account heavy workload in government hospitals”. The instructions were issued on May 26, 13 days after Bhatia’s PIL.

The PIL attaches 11 ultrasound reports from local centres where doctors haven’t made mandatory declarations that foetal sex hasn’t been revealed. Gurgaon health authorities, however, trash Bhatia’s evidence as “fabricated” and counter allege that he is extorting money from radiologists by threatening them of court action.

Meanwhile, the High Court will hear the case on July 28.