Three doctors sentenced to three years in jail for pre-natal sex determination

india

Updated: Aug 27, 2019 02:06 IST

A local court in Gwalior has awarded three years’ imprisonment to three doctors for allegedly agreeing to disclose the gender of yet-to-be-born children for a bribe of Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 about 10 years ago, according to a government lawyer.

The court order convicting the three hadn’t been made public as of press time on Monday.

Ritesh Goyal, additional district prosecutor officer (ADPO), Gwalior, said the three doctors were convicted under the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 by judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) of Gwalior district court Prachi Patel.

Goyal identified the convicted doctors as Dr Sushama Trivedi, Dr SK Shrivastava and Dr Sandhya Tiwari.

A fine of Rs 8,000 each was also imposed on Dr Shrivastava and Dr Tiwari and Rs 3,000 on Dr Trivedi, he said.

Goyal said, “The sting operation was conducted 10 years back by a Delh- based organisation, Beti Bachao Samiti, against four clinics in Gwalior. The team conducting the sting operation recorded’ the deal with doctors’ and these three doctors agreed to disclose the gender of the embryo for Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000. Later, chief medical health officer (CMHO) filed a criminal complaint to the court (under the PCDNT Act).”

Dr Shrivastava is a homoeopath and was running a sonography centre without permission of the CMHO, the prosecution lawyer said. The other two doctors run nursing homes.

One of defence lawyers, Sameer Shrivastava, said, “The doctors got bail in the case. As far as an appeal is concerned it depends on the decision of the doctors.”

According to a health ministry release on March 17, 2018, a total of 3,986 cases had been filed under the law in various courts of the country. Until December 2017, 449 convictions had been secured under the law and following the convictions, the medical licences of 136 doctors was suspended or cancelled, the ministry statement said.