The Government of India enacted the Pre-conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 (PC&PNDT Act) to address the menace of sex selection leading to female foeticide. After 20 years, as per information placed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare before the Lok Sabha on 27.02.2015, 14 States/UTs i.e. Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Andaman & Nicobar Island, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Lakshadweep and Puducherry had not filed a single case under the PC&PNDT Act since 1994. Further, during the same period, no conviction was secured in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal and Union Territories of Chandigarh. Indeed as of15 March 2016, only 2,152 court cases had been filed by various State Appropriate Authorities and only 306 convictions had been secured under the PC&PNDT Act.
There is simply little understanding of the Act. The PC&PNDT Department of the State governments and the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare only upload the judgments of the Supreme Court for strict implementation of the Act. Jurisprudence on implementation of the Act such as conviction, cancellation of registration etc is hardly made available.
This publication is appears to be the first repository of the judgements under the PC&PNDT Act and aims to create technical capacities among the authorities under the Act, lawyers and judicial officers in trial of the offences under PCPNDT Act.
