The court clarified the authority to lodge FIR under the PNDT Act, the role of police in investigating PNDT Act offences, and rejected jurisdictional challenges.

ORDER

Gurvinder Singh Gill, J. - The petitioner has approached this Court seeking quashing of FIR No.474 dated 14.7.2021 under Sections 23, 3(1), 3A, 4, 5(2), 6(b) of the Pre-Conception and Pre Natal-Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the PNDT Act) and Sections 120-B/34 of IPC at Police Station Barwala, District Hisar and all subsequent proceedings emanating there from.

2. The FIR was lodged at the instance of Dr. Prabhu Dayal, Nodal Officer, PNDT, Civil Hospital, Hisar. The story unfolded in the FIR is that Civil Surgeon-cum-Chairman, District Appropriate Authority, Fatehabad received a secret information to the effect that illegal sex determination was being carried on. Upon receipt of said information Civil Surgeon, Fatehabad constituted a three member team on 12.7.2021 comprising of the following members :-

(i) Dr. Hanuman Singh, Deputy Civil Surgeon, Fatehabad;

(ii) Dr. Girish Kumar, Additional Senior Medical Officer, General Hospital, Fatehabad; and

(iii) Dr. Kamal Beniwal, Medical Officer, General Hospital, Fatehabad.

3. The said persons were authorized to do the needful and also to get the requisite FIR lodged. The team so appointed collected information to the effect that Jagraj Singh, resident of Sangrur with the help of Jaswinder Kaur, resident of Tohana, District Fatehabad used to get sex determination tests conducted in an illegal manner. A pregnant lady namely Nisha was associated as a decoy pregnant female. A deal for sex-determination test was struck for an amount of Rs.40,000/-. On the asking of secret informer, an amount of Rs.20,000/- was transferred from the account of the decoy pregnant female to the account of Jagraj through 'Google Pay' from the mobile phone of the decoy pregnant female to the mobile phone of Jagraj. The decoy pregnant female was asked to pay the balance amount of Rs.20,000/- in cash on the day of examination. One Deepak Kumar, Pharmacist at Government Hospital, Sirsa was nominated to accompany the decoy pregnant female in a car which was to take the decoy pregnant female to the place nominated by Jagraj Singh i.e. Chandigarh Road near Chaudhry Petrol Pump, Tohana on 13.7.2021 at 9:30 a.m. On the said day, the team constituted by Civil Surgeon tailed the car in which the decoy pregnant female was being taken for the test. When the car driven by Deepak Kumar reached near Chaudhry Petrol Pump at about 9:30 a.m., Deepak Kumar, on the asking of the secret informant, took the car towards Railway Road,Tohana where two persons came on a motorcycle. One of them whose name was Jagraj sat in the car. Deepak as well as the decoy pregnant female were made to sit on the rear seat. Another lady namely Jaswinder Kaur also came and sat in the car. On the asking of Jaswinder Kaur, the decoy pregnant female handed over an amount of Rs.20,000/- in cash which had been given to her by the team. Jagraj drove the car to Barwala (Hisar). One of the team members namely Dr. Girish Kumar intimated Dr. Ratna Bharti, Civil Surgeon, Hisar through Dr. Viresh Bhushan, Civil Surgeon, Fatehabad that their team as well as the decoy pregnant female were proceeding towards Barwala (Hisar) and asked them to keep their PNDT team ready so that they may also reach the place of occurrence immediately. Consequently, a team comprising of the following doctors/ officials of Hisar was constituted:-

(i) Dr. Prabhu Dayal, Nodal Officer, PNDT, Hisar;

(ii) Dr. Kamind Monga, ASMO-CHC, Hansi; and

(iii) Dr. Tarun Bhutani, Dental Surgeon, UHC, Sector 14, Hisar.

4. The team, so constituted, was to wait for the signal from the Fatehabad team. The Alto car in which the decoy pregnant female was travelling reached Bus Stand, Barwala where Jaswinder Kaur and Jagraj asked Deepak to alight from the car. Another lady sat in the car. Jagraj took the car to JD Jindal Hospital situated at Hisar road. Jaswinder Kaur took along with her the decoy pregnant female as well as the other lady to the house situated in the colony behind JD Jinda