CEHAT alongwith MASUM and Sabu George had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court of India in February 2000. This initiative was directed at putting back the issue of Sex-determination and Sex pre-selection on the national agenda. A concerted campaign during the latter part of nineteen-eighties by health and women groups had resulted in enactment of a legislation by the Maharashtra government banning the use of medical technology for determining foetal sex as this practice was increasingly leading to sex-selective(female) abortions. After the Maharashtra Act, other states where sex-selective abortions were on the rise witnesses campaigns and states like Punjab and Gujarat also were pressurised to legislate against this practice. In the meantime the central government had been convinced that this was an issue requiring a national initiative and hence a Central Act was promulgated covering the entire country from 1 January 1996.
Since then the experience has not been good. No government had taken any substantive action and hence the need to file a public interest litigation.
The Supreme Court on 4th May 2001 passed an interim order directing the central and state governments to implement the Act by setting up the necessary systems as demanded by the Pre natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) 1994.
CEHAT and others associated with this campaign are involved in processes at the state and national level to create an environment for rigorous implementation of the Act as well as involve various stake holders to come forward and share the responsibility for making the implementation of this Act a success.
We have hosted the following information on this website. If you need any more information do let us know at cehat@vsnl.com