HYDERABAD: A division bench of Telangana High Court has decided to hear a suo moto taken up PIL case based on a news item published recently in a vernacular daily highlighting alleged illegal activities of hundreds of sex determination scanning centres in the State.
The news report alleged that several persons who are in no-way concerned with the health and welfare of the people are involved with active connivance of the officials of various departments in continuing with the menace of sex determination, which would result in killing of foetus if it is found to be of female, even before the child is born.
It said that upto Rs 50,000 is being charged for this illegal activity, and there are about 2,000 scanning centres in Greater Hyderabad area and most of them have not renewed their licences.
After going through the contents of the news item, Justice P Naveen Rao of the High Court addressed a letter to the Chief Justice requesting to take up the news item as a public interest litigation.
Responding to the request, Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan treated the news item as a taken up PIL case seeking directions to the respondent authorities to take adequate steps to curb the illegal activities in this regard.
State chief secretary, principal secretaries to medical, health, family welfare, women and child welfare and other authorities concerned were named as the respondents.
The matter is expected to come up for hearing next week.