HC Relief: 2 Hisar doctors acquitted in 2006 PCPNDT Act case

Chandigarh: Two directors of a Hisar-based diagnostic centre who were booked under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act have been acquitted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court after 19 years of legal proceedings.

The court passed the order after it observed that the local health officials had made procedural errors while taking action against M/s Kamboj Ultrasound and Diagnostic Pvt. Ltd and its two directors- Dr Mahender Kamboj and Renu Kamboj.

While acquitting the duo, Single Bench Justice JS Bedi stated that, according to the law (the PNDT Act), against the accused should have been filed by a committee of three appointed members, but instead the complaint was filed by just one person. Since that required procedure was not followed, the court said the complaint itself was not valid or maintainable. Because the complaint was invalid, all the legal steps and convictions based on it are also invalid.

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“In the instant case, the complaint was filed by Dr SK Naval alone, and it ought to have been filed by a three-member committee, appointed. The same not having been done, the very complaint itself is not maintainable and therefore, the subsequent proceedings and conviction stand vitiated," observed the court.

As per the HT news report, the case dates back to December 2006, when the clinic and its directors were accused of failing to maintain patient records as required under the PCPNDT Act. After receiving a tip-off, the clinic was raided by the local health officials. The officials seized documents and a panel was formed to investigate the documents. The panel found lapses in the clinic's records.

Following this, the clinic's license was suspended, and the civil surgeon wrote to the police to register a criminal case against the clinic and both of its directors. Based on it, the case was taken up in the trial court and the accused directors were convicted in January 2008.

Dr Mahender Kamboj was sentenced to three years in jail, while Renu Kamboj received a two-year sentence. Later that year, in August, a sessions court in Hisar reduced both sentences to two years. The Kambojs then appealed to the high court.

Their main argument was that the complaint was not legally valid because it was filed solely by the civil surgeon, instead of a three-member committee as required under the PNDT Act.

In the court, the state’s counsel admitted to the lapse but argued that the case dates back to 2006, and it was in 2014, this court had interpreted Section 17(3)(b) to the effect that the complaint could only be filed by the district appropriate authority, which was to be a three-member body. Therefore, prosecutions initiated earlier could not be vitiated, the government had argued.

The court observed that the interpretation of a provision relates to the date of the law itself and cannot be a prospective interpretation of the same by a court.

“When the court decides that the interpretation given to a particular provision earlier was not legal, it declares the law as it stood right from the beginning of its promulgation. Under Section 17(3)(b) of the Act, the district-level appropriate authority is also to be a three-member body. Therefore, this interpretation of the law would deem to exist from September 20, 1994 itself, i.e. the date of promulgation of the Act,” the bench added.

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