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The High Court (HC) has issued a rule prohibiting detection of gender of unborn babies or fetuses.
The court also instructed the hospital and diagnostic centre authorities to strictly follow the order.
The HC bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Kazi Zinat Hoque delivered the verdict on Sunday after disposing of a writ petition filed in this regard.
Supreme Court lawyer Ishrat Hasan who filed the writ petition herself argued in support of her petition while Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta represented the state and Tirtha Salil appeared for the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Ishrat Hasan filed the petition on January 26, 2020 with the High Court as public interest litigation seeking necessary directive regarding the issue.
Following the writ petition, an HC bench on February 3, 2020 issued a rule upon the bodies concerned of the government to explain as to why the failure of the respondents to frame a guideline to prevent gender detection of unborn babies should not be declared illegal.
At the same time, the court wanted to know in the rule as to why a direction should not be passed against the respondents to frame guideline to prevent gender detection of unborn babies.
Following the HC rule, the DGHS formed a 19-member body to formulate a guideline.
Finally, the DGHS approved a guideline and submitted it to the HC on January 29 this year.
In the guideline, the DGHS outlined that the identity of the unborn babies cannot be disclosed.
According to the guideline, "No person, organisation, genetic counselling centre, genetic laboratory or genetic clinic, including clinic, laboratory or centre having ultrasound machine or imaging machine or scanner or any other technology capable or determining sex of fetus shall issue, display, publish, distribute, communicate in any manner or cause to be issued, displayed, published, distributed or communicated any advertisement, in any form, including internet or any symbolic expression, the availability of facilities to enable prenatal diagnosis or prenatal sex determination available as such centre, laboratory, clinic or any other place."