The PNDT Act prohibits sex determination kits, popularly called jantar mantar in Punjab, taken from its original name ‘gender mentor’.
The information technology (IT) ministry seems to be turning a deaf ear to the grave concern expressed by prime minister Manmohan Singh and president Pratibha Patil at the increasing number of female foeticide cases in the country.
It has failed to respond to the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) repeated directions to evolve a mechanism by which websites promoting the shameful practice could be curbed.
SC had to adjourn on Monday hearing in a two-year-old petition filed by activist Sabu George seeking directions to all networking websites and the government to immediately install filters preventing ads promoting pre-birth tests of foetuses to determine gender.
A bench headed by chief justice KG Balakrishnan told the government that if the IT ministry did not file an affidavit stating steps taken to stop objectionable ads within four weeks, it would proceed with the case and pass the necessary directions.
George said since he moved SC about two years ago, there had been a “sharp increase in female foeticide cases and the flow of information about clinics that provide [for] it”.
Additional solicitor general (ASG) Indira Jaising has expressed the government’s inability to block anti-prenatal diagnostic techniques (PNDT) websites, saying genuine users would be affected, but lawyer Colin Gonsalves said blocking a website was not a new phenomenon. “It has been done regularly in matters of national security,” he told the court.
The home ministry has admitted that the PNDT Act is ineffective in checking female foeticide.
The law prohibits advertising sex determination kits, popularly called jantar mantar kits in Punjab, taken from its original name ‘gender mentor’, and clinics supporting female foeticide or determination of sex of the unborn.
United Nations Children’s Fund says India is short of up to 50 million girls and women due to systematic gender discrimination. In most other countries, there are approximately 105 female births for every 100 males.
According to figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau, 81 cases of female foeticide were reported in Punjab in the last three years, while Rajasthan reported 51. Madhya Pradesh registered 21 cases, Haryana 18 and Chhattisgarh 24.
Punjab and Haryana have a skewed sex ratio of around 800 females per 1,000 males, much lower than the national average of 933 females per 1,000 males. The Fatehgarh Sahib district in Punjab has one of the lowest sex ratios in the country at 700 females per 1,000 males.
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