Chennai: The Madras High Court disposed of the plea challenging the FIR registered by the police against the doctor for performing sex determination. The court passed the order while disposing of a plea moved by Dr. Dhamayanti Rajkumar of Sree Mathura Hospital, Salem, challenging the FIR registered against her for performing sex determination by the police. According to the petitioner the power to investigate any breach of the provision of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act exclusively vested with the appropriate authority and not the police. Therefore the petitioner pleaded that the police who is not an appropriate authority notified as per the act cannot register FIR and investigatethe matter.
Justice G Jayachandran of Madras High Court while disposing off the plea said “If police are prohibited from registering FIR or to investigate, if in case of an imminent necessity to arrest a person to prevent the commission of an offence under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, no authority can do it and the offence cannot be prevented but only be punished after the commission”.
The judge further said “If the interpretation that only an appropriate authority notified under the act is allowed to make a complaint for offences committed under the act is allowed to stay, then the very objective of the act in preventing female feticide will be defeated”.