Expired clinic registration, irregularities in Form F, G: IVF specialist sentenced to 2.5 years jail for violating PC PNDT Act

Bhubaneswar: Holding an IVF specialist guilty of violating the Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC-PNDT) Act, 1994, a Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Bhubaneswar recently sentenced the doctor to 2.5 years of imprisonment and imposed a penalty of Rs 10,000.

Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Bhubaneswar Bhanupratap Mishra convicted Dr. Nabaneeta Padhy, medical director of Femelife Fertility Foundation Private Limited of Gajapati Nagar under Sections 23 and 25 of PC and PNDT Act. While imposing the fine, the court observed that failure to do the same would result in five months of additional imprisonment. 

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For the two violations, the doctor was sentenced to 2.5 years and six months imprisonment on the stipulation that the two sentences will not run concurrently. 

The incident took place on August 30, 2019, when the collector in Khurda decided to conduct a surprise inspection and ask the officials concerned for the same to make sure the rules and provisions of the PC and PNDT Act are being followed by the clinics. Thus, while conducting a verification the at Femelife Fertility in Jayadev Vihar, the officials found that the license of the clinic had expired around 4 months back, on September 15, 2018, as per a media report in The New Indian Express.