Why India Prohibits Prenatal Sex Determination: The PCPNDT Act

On 11 June 2026, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by a doctor from Maharashtra who wanted to quash a case filed against him under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994, commonly known as the PCPNDT Act. While deciding the matter, the court examined the history of the law and the problem of the skewed child sex ratio in many parts of India, noting that progress has been made but remains incomplete and uneven.

The child sex ratio refers to the number of girls per 1,000 boys in the age group of 0 to 6 years. Between 1981 and 1991, this ratio fell in India from 962 to 945. Around the same period, ultrasound facilities were spreading rapidly, and there were fears that they were being misused to find out the sex of an unborn child, leading to sex-selective abortions because of family or social pressure. The PCPNDT Act was passed to stop this by making prenatal sex determination illegal.

The Act prohibits sex selection both before and after conception. It regulates prenatal diagnostic techniques and allows them only for detecting abnormalities or disorders, not for finding the sex of the child. It requires ultrasound clinics to register themselves and to maintain detailed records, including a mandatory form recording the patient's medical history. Registration can be suspended or cancelled for violations, and offenders can face imprisonment of up to five years. Notably, while some countries allow prenatal sex determination but ban sex-selective abortion, Indian law prohibits both.

The case before the court involved a doctor who ran a sonography centre in Nanded, Maharashtra. After an anonymous complaint, an inspection found that in several cases the signatures and declarations of pregnant women, and in other cases the signature of the doctor performing the sonography, were missing from the records. The doctor argued that these were only minor lapses caused by a rush of work and did not prove any link to sex determination. Both the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court rejected this argument, holding that the Act leaves no room for errors in record-keeping and that the extent of the violations is a matter to be decided at trial.

The Supreme Court pointed to Census data showing the national child sex ratio falling from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001 and 919 in 2011, before a partial recovery in recent years to around 929 girls per 1,000 boys at birth. The bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra called this only a partial course correction and noted that several states still report ratios below the national average. It referred to government schemes such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, and said that strict enforcement of the PCPNDT Act remains essential until there is a wider change in mindset and true equality for the girl child is achieved.