The Union Ministry for Health and Family Welfare is in a fix over its own directive that allows for the appointment of more appropriate authorities to implement the Pre-Conception and Pre Diagnostic Techniques (PC-PNDT) Act in the country.

The ministry has clearly been told by legal experts that its directive to appoint district collectors would be null and void unless the Act has been amended by Parliament.

A circular had been issued to all states on February 12, 2007, under Section 17 (2) of the PC-PNDT Act 1994, amended in 2002, that the district magistrate would be appointed as the appropriate authority to look into the problem of pre-natal sex determination leading to female foeticide.

While certain states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan and others have started implementing the directive by issuing their own departmental circulars, activists like Dr Sabu George, member Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes and one of the key petitioners in the Supreme Court asking for the implementation of the existing legislation banning pre-natal sex selection, told The Indian Express that this order would undermine the implementation of the Act.

Even as several states are yet to implement this directive, activists feel it will create confusion and wants to buy time before evidence can be produced against doctors indulging in sex-determination practices.

According to a Supreme Court lawyer, the Ministry has sought advice on the issue. The lawyer pointed out that the directive cannot be binding or the proposed amendment cannot come into force until it has been made into a law.

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