IVF specialist gets 2.5 yrs jail for ultrasound clinic with expired registration

Khurda district officials in August 2019 carried out at inspection at the doctor’s Bhubaneswar clinic and found multiple violations of the PC-PNDT Act

Updated on: Aug 26, 2022, 06:46:58 IST

By Debabrata Mohanty

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Bhubaneswar: A court in Odisha sentenced a leading infertility specialist in Bhubaneswar to two-and-a-half years and ₹10,000 penalty nearly four years after she was booked for running a clinic in violation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC-PNDT) Act, 1994.

The conviction of a IVF specialist in Odisha comes four years after district officials carried out an inspection at Femelife Fertility clinic in Bhubaneswar (Getty Images/Representative)

Judicial magistrate Bhanupratap Mishra on Thursday sentenced Dr Nabaneeta Padhy to 33 months of simple imprisonment under the PC-PNDT Act. She was handed out sentences of 2.5 years and six months for two violations on the stipulation that the two sentences will not run concurrently.

In August 2019, a team of Khurda district officials accused Dr Padhy’s Femelife Fertility clinic in Bhubaneswar of multiple violations of the PC-PNDT Act after an inspection.

The team said the clinic’s registration under the PC-PNDT Act had expired a year ago and the clinic owner hadn’t informed district authorities about the installation of two ultrasound machines in her clinic. The OPD register was also not properly maintained in the ultrasound unit. Form-F which is used to regulate abuse of the technology for sex determination was not filled in the prescribed format and records of the previous two years records were not available in the ultrasound unit. Also, the clinic did not maintain patient reports of the pre-natal scans.

Odisha’s child sex ratio has plummeted to its lowest level while states such as Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have indicated an increase in the last five years.

The National Family Health Survey-5 results released last year said Odisha had 894 females for every 1,000 males compared to 932 in NFHS-4 conducted in 2015-16. Child sex ratio is defined as the number of girls per 1,000 boys between 0-6 years of age and is considered a good indicator of social health.

The fall was across urban and rural areas with the child sex ratio declining from 966 in 2015-16 to 950 in 2020-21 in urban areas. The decline was sharper in rural areas, from 926 in 2015-16 to 855 in 2020-21.

In May this year, police in Berhampur town of Ganjam district busted an inter-state sex determination racket and arrested 13 people in this connection.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Debabrata Mohanty
Debabrata Mohanty is a senior assistant editor of Hindustan Times who works as state correspondent from Odisha covering the state's politics, governance, public policy, natural disasters, environment and its society for close to three decades. With his long years of reporting from the state capital of Bhubaneswar, Mohanty has been known as one of the most experienced and credible journalists covering Odisha for the national English dailies. His reporting combines on-ground detail with deep institutional knowledge detailing the state's changing politics, governance issues, administrative reforms and the functioning of its public institutions. He has regularly reported on issues ranging from legislative developments and public policy implementation. Politics is his core areas of expertise as he closely tracks Odisha's political landscape, including the rise and transformation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the two principal political parties in Odisha. His long association with the state's political establishment enables him to write on contemporary developments in a larger political context. Mohanty takes a deep interest in writing human interest stories, environmental issues and documenting the impact of cyclones, floods, heatwaves, and other climate-related events in one of the most disaster-prone states. His coverage extends to public health, governance reforms and stories on accountability of government institutions. Before joining Hindustan Times, Mohanty worked with The Indian Express, Mail Today, and The Telegraph, where he covered at least six general elections and as many assembly elections. In 2007, he was selected for the prestigious Chevening Young Indian Print Journalist Programme at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom, where he received advanced training in print journalism. In 2009 he won the Press Institute of India-International Committee of Red Cross award on conflict reporting for his on-ground reportage of 2008 Kandhamal riots.Read More

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