Justice A P Mayee of the Gujarat High Court was hearing a petition filed by Dr Milankumar Patel, a gynaecologist and obstetrician who has been practising for 11 years, and runs Laxmi Women’s Hospital in Sabarkantha district’s Idar. The plea impored the court to “quash and set aside the orders of the State Appropriate Authority” that had rejected his appeal in the matter on July 31, 2025, and upheld the March 2025 decision of the authorities to suspend his registration and seal the machines.
The doctor also sought a stay in the implementation and operation of the said order until the final disposal of the petition as well as relief deemed fit in “the interest of justice”.
Considering the submissions of the authorities that “non-filling of Form F is not a minor or clerical lapse even in cases of alleged emergency”, the high court upheld the decision to suspend the petitioner’s registration under the PCPNDT Act, 1994, and seal “all the three sonography machines” at his hospital.
The high court order, made available on Thursday, dismissed the doctor’s petition as being “devoid of merits”, while stating that it had found “no illegality, arbitrariness or violation of principles of natural justice” in the March and July 2025 orders. ‘Sting operation’ held in February 2025
On February 18, 2025, based on a sting operation, the District Appropriate Authority sealed all three sonography machines at the petitioner’s hospital. On the same day, it also seized Form F records, registers maintained under the PC & PNDT Act, OPD (Outpatient Department) register, CCTV footage and Form B. By communication dated February 18, 2025, the petitioner was called upon to give an explanation as to why his PCPNDT registration should not be suspended or cancelled.
In an order dated March 24, 2025, the Authority suspended the petitioner’s registration under the PCPNDT Act and rejected his request for restoration of registration and desealing of the sonography machines. The petitioner filed an appeal before the State Appropriate Authority, Gandhinagar, against the said order, which was rejected on July 31, 2025 and the March order of suspension of registration was upheld, noting that a criminal case was already pending before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Idar.
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Failure to file Form F a non-bailable offence
In the oral order, the court considered the submissions of the counsel appearing for the authorities and the state as well as the facts placed on record to rule that the “State Appropriate Authority under the PC&PNDT Act, Health and Family Welfare Department Gujarat had held that the District Appropriate Authority had duly issued notice and afforded an opportunity of hearing to the appellant, that non-filling of Form F is not a minor or clerical lapse even in cases of alleged emergency.”
As per the provisions of the Act, filling of Form F is “strictly mandatory” for every ultrasound performed on a pregnant woman to prevent sex determination and failure to comply with it is a non-bailable, cognizable offence.
Allegations ‘unsupported’
Citing “violation of principles of natural justice”, the counsel representing the doctor pointed at lapses in the “sting operation”, contending the allegation of sex determination was “disclosed for the first time only during the appeal through written remarks and was never part of the original notice or action”. The court noted the further submissions of the doctor that “there is no breach of the sections” of the PCPNDT Act and the petitioner had “no ill intention as the decoy patient’s name was duly entered in the OPD (Outpatient Department) register, which is now in custody of the authorities”.
The doctor also submitted that the “allegation regarding non-entry in the PCPNDT register is unsustainable as no time limit is prescribed” in the Act and that the (decoy) patient was “an emergency case”.
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The doctor submitted that the allegations of demanding and receiving Rs 25,000 were “wholly unsupported” as there was “no evidence of any demand or payment, disclosure or recovery of the pre-noted currency notes from the petitioner”. He also contended that “no sonography of the decoy patient was conducted and several findings in the appellate order are contrary to the record.”
The counsel appearing for the authority submitted the petitioner had performed sonography on the decoy patient, which was “audio-visually recorded”, and the decoy as well as an accompanying witness gave statements confirming that the doctor had demanded Rs 25,000 for the disclosure of the sex of the foetus and directed the amount to be deposited with a man named Jigar Patel at Roshni Medical store, which was accordingly done by the decoy patient.
The doctor had also contended that the authorities had not supplied the copy of the statement of the decoy patient to the petitioner and that the appellate order does not “disclose what was verified, how, when, or in whose presence”. The petition contended that no panchnama or list of seized articles was provided to the petitioner despite specific demand and sealing of the machines and the suspension of registration were carried out without furnishing the documents that the authorities had relied upon to arrive at the decision.
The doctor also submitted that the prolonged sealing of the machines “has adversely affected the patients of the petitioner” as the authorities made no effort “to retrieve the data from the machines though the same could have been copied”.
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The order of the court states, “No error can be attributed to the findings arrived at by the Authorities… The petitioner has been trapped in a planned sting operation. The actions taken by the District Authority is in accordance with law… having found no illegality, arbitrariness or violation of principles of natural justice in the orders…passed by the District Appropriate Authority and the State Appropriate Authority, the present Special Civil Application is devoid of merits and is hereby dismissed.”
