Prison and fines for two doctors engaged in prenatal diagnosis for male babies

(Nov.03,2009): In western India’s Maharashtra State, a municipal court in Mumbai sentenced to three years prison - two doctors who practiced prenatal diagnosis to “select a son". The magistrate RV Jambkar of Dadar Shindewadi Court, considered the two defendants guilty of four breaches of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act PNDT of 2003, which prohibits the selection of unborn children based on sex. The two convicted are Chhaya Tated, a 42-year-old homeopath, and Shubhangi Adkar, a 62-year-old doctor, who on two Sundays a month, preformed pre-natal diagnosis at Shree Maternity and Nursing Home in the municipality of Dadar. In November 2004 they published an advertisement in a magazine which offered a special treatment for couples who "want a son."
In addition to three years imprisonment, the court imposed the payment of a fine of 30 thousand rupees each, the maximum penalty provided by PNDT. In India cases of imprisonment imposed for violation of PNDT are rare, but the judge gave reasons for his sentence stating that "when two respected people commit crimes that are not only abominable, but also against the existence of society, they can not be treated with leniency". Over the past 20 years, India has recorded at least 10 million selective abortions of female fetuses.