Health authorities, pvt docs spar over police action

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Sirsa, August 2

The health authorities and members of the Indian Medical Association are at daggers drawn over the registration of FIRs in cases of violation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act .

The health authorities have lodged 61 FIRs against doctors, para-medics and quacks in various parts of the state for violation of the PC&PNDT Act and under the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao abhiyan.

Rajesh Jogpal, ADC, Fatehabad, said the police action had started showing results as the fear of prosecution deterred the commission of crime.

However, private doctors across Haryana, particularly those running ultrasound centres, are not happy and term the FIRs against the prevailing laws.

“This is nothing but state terrorism against doctors,” alleged Dr Pankaj Nain, Chairman of an organisation “Doctors Save Daughters”. Nain, who retired as a Director in the State Health Services in Haryana, alleged that the state authorities were themselves violating the PC&PNDT Act by lodging police cases against doctors.

Accusing the authorities of being ill-informed, Nain alleged that they were taking arbitrary decisions only to cover up their failure to check the declining sex ratio.

Dr DS Jaspal, a former vice-president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), said there was no provision of registering FIR against doctors under the PC&PNDT Act.

Jaspal cited section 28 of the PC&PNDT Act that said “No court shall take cognizance of an offence under the Act except on a complaint made by the appropriate authority concerned, or any other person authorised on his behalf by the Central or State Government ……”

He said it was clear that only an appropriate authority, which was civil surgeon, had the powers to file a criminal complaint in the court and the police had no business to intervene.

Haryana is the only state where FIRs are being lodged for violation of the PC&PNDT Act and recently when a police party accompanied by health authorities from Sirsa had nabbed an ultrasound owner at Moonak in Punjab, the Punjab authorities had refused to register an FIR citing section 28 of the PC&PNDT Act.

GL Singal, State Coordinator of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Abhiyan, however, maintained that FIRs were maintainable under the Act and claimed that the police action against erring doctors had shown good results. “Section 27 of the Act describes all offences under this Act as cognizable, non-bailable and non-compoundable,” he said, adding that the Criminal Procedure Code described a cognizable offence as one where the police could file an FIR.