A district court here on Monday ordered the registration of an FIR against three top bureaucrats including Principal Secretary, Secretary and former Director of Health for violation of Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic (Prohibition of Sex Selection) (PCPNDT) Act, 1994 and 1996.
Judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) Gwalior KN Ahirwar ordered for registeraton of the case against senior IAS officer Praveer Krishna, who is principal Secretary in Health department, Secretary Suraj Damor and Dr Ashok Sharma and issued summons. The next hearing in the case has been fixed on October 13.
The action by the district court was taken on a petition filed by KK Dixit of a voluntary organisation ‘Deendayal Nagar Seva Samiti. In the petition, Dixit claimed that these officials were members of the board formed under the PNDT Act. As per rules, in every four months, one meeting of the board is essential, but from May 8, 2013 to January 14, 2014 they did not conduct a single meeting.
In the petition, he alleged that not conducting any meeting clearly suggested that these officials were hand in gloves with those hospitals, nursing homes and doctors who were engaged in sex determination.
He further alleged that the officials violated the Act, which subsequently had resulted in the cases of female feticide in the Gwalior-Chambal region.
As per the Supreme Court ruling, central supervisory board and the state and union territories supervisory boards, constituted under sections 7 and 16A of PC&PNDT Act, should meet at least once in six months, so as to supervise and oversee how effective is the implementation of the PC&PNDT Act, he added.