New Delhi: Supreme Court on Tuesday granted four weeks to states to respond to a plea for the effective implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act and related rules. It came on record while about five states hadn’t filed their stand, the rest had filed their affidavits on the plea.
The PCPNDT law was enacted to prohibit the use of prenatal diagnostic techniques for determining the sex of the foetus.
A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan was informed about the top court granting four weeks in Sept last year to the states to file their affidavits.
The states were directed to indicate the number of cases, appeals, revisions or other proceedings in such cases filed by appropriate authorities before the appellate courts concerned. “Have the states filed their counters?” the bench asked.
Senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, who appeared in the matter, said some states had filed their affidavits. “It appears that about five states have not filed. There were umpteen number of acquittals in these cases but appeals were not filed against them,” he said.
“Why they are not filing the appeals against acquittals?” the bench asked.
The top court said it appeared that authorities did not prosecute such cases properly, leading to acquittals.
The counsel appearing for one of the states assured to file the affidavit within two weeks. “We are not imposing cost but next time, we may impose cost,” the bench cautioned as it granted four weeks and posted the matter for October 10. The bench appointed Parikh as amicus curiae.
In Sept last year, SC while asking the states to file the affidavits said the data should be from May 1, 2015 till date.
In July 2023, SC sought responses from several states on a plea filed by petitioner advocate Shobha Gupta. The petitioner said the law was not being implemented in “letter and spirit”.
Her counsel said the corresponding rules framed under the Act mandated the appeal to be filed against any order of acquittal under the law, whose object is to save unborn children.
In Sept 2022, the top court issued notice to the Centre on the plea which sought directions to the appropriate authorities at all levels to ensure strict compliance with the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Rules, 1966 with further directions that any failure shall attract adverse consequences.
The petition said statistics from various states showed the conviction rate under the Act was quite low.
