Hisar doctors booked under PNDT Act acquitted after 19 years
It was in December 2006, a case under PNDT Act was instituted against the centre, M/s Kamboj Ultrasound and Diagnostic Pvt. Ltd. and two of its directors, Dr Mahender Kamboj and Renu Kamboj.
Nineteen years after the criminal case was instituted, the Punjab and Haryana high court has acquitted two directors of a Hisar based diagnostic centre booked under the provisions of Pre Conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994, over procedural lapses by the local health authorities.
“In the instant case, the complaint was filed by Dr SK Naval alone, and it ought to have been filed by a three-member committee, appointed. The same not having been done, the very complaint itself is not maintainable and therefore, the subsequent proceedings and conviction stands vitiated,” the bench of justice JS Bedi said while acquitting the duo.
It was in December 2006, a case under PNDT Act was instituted against the centre, M/s Kamboj Ultrasound and Diagnostic Pvt. Ltd. and two of its directors, Dr Mahender Kamboj and Renu Kamboj. The allegations were of not maintaining the patient record as per the requirement of the law. The local health authorities had acted after news reports of PNDT norm violations. The premises were raided, records seized, and a panel examined the records and found lapses in record keeping. The license of the clinic was suspended, and the civil surgeon wrote to the police to register a criminal case against the clinic and both of its directors.
They were convicted by a trial court in January 2008 and Mahender Kamboj was awarded three years jail and Renu Kamboj handed down two years jail. In August 2008 sessions court in Hisar modified their punishment in both the cases as two years.
It was against this order that they approached the high court arguing that that the complaint was not filed by a competent authority. It came from the civil surgeon and not from a three-member committee appointed in accordance with the PNDT Act.
State’s counsel had admitted to the lapse but argued that the case dates back to 2006 and it was in 2014, this court had interpreted Section 17(3)(b) to the effect that the complaint could only be filed by the district appropriate authority which was to be a three-member body. Therefore, prosecutions initiated earlier could not be vitiated, the government had argued.
The court observed that the interpretation of a provision relates back to the date of the law itself and cannot be prospective of interpretation of the same by a court. “When the court decides that the interpretation given to a particular provision earlier was not legal, it declares the law as it stood right from the beginning of its promulgation,” the bench remarked.
It added that under Section 17(3)(b) of the Act, the district level appropriate authority is also to be a three-members body. “Therefore, this interpretation of the law would deem to exist from September 20, 1994 itself i.e. the date of promulgation of the Act,” it clarified.
