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Ravinder Kumar vs The State of Haryana

Not available · 2024 INSC 684Decided 12 Sept 2024
Not available
Justice Abhay S. Oka · Justice Augustine George Masih

Background

The appellant, a doctor running a diagnostic clinic in Gurugram, was raided in 2017 based on a sting operation targeting a woman accused of running a sex-determination and illegal abortion racket; a decoy patient was allegedly sent to the appellant's clinic for an ultrasound to reveal the sex of her fetus. An FIR and a complaint were registered against the appellant under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, and the High Court declined to quash them. The appellant argued that the raid itself was illegal because it was authorised by only one member (the Civil Surgeon) of the three-member statutory "Appropriate Authority," rather than by the authority as a whole.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed with the appellant, holding that the law requires a collective decision of the Appropriate Authority (Civil Surgeon, District Programme Officer, and District Attorney) before a search can be authorised, and that the Civil Surgeon acting alone, even citing urgency, could not lawfully order the raid. Since the entire prosecution was founded solely on evidence gathered during this illegal search, the Court held that continuing the case would be an abuse of the legal process. It accordingly quashed both the FIR and the complaint against the appellant.

Lesson Learnt

When a law requires a multi-member body to authorise an action like a search, a single member acting alone cannot validly do so, and evidence gathered through such an unauthorised search can render the entire prosecution built on it illegal.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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