The High Court (HC) on Monday published the full text of its verdict prohibiting hospitals, diagnostic centres, laboratories, or any other entity from disclosing the gender of an unborn child.
Earlier, on 25 February 2024, a HC bench comprising Justice Naima Haider and Justice Kazi Zinat Hoque delivered the verdict.
The court directed an end to the unethical practice of determining, identifying, and revealing the gender of fetuses, declaring that from now on it cannot be disclosed whether a child in the womb is male or female.
Lawyer Ishrat Hasan represented the writ petition, while Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta appeared for the state and lawyer Tirtha Salil Roy represented the Directorate General of Health Services.
The verdict stated that determining and disclosing the gender of an unborn child encourages discrimination against women, fuels female foeticide, disrupts social balance, and violates constitutional rights. Such practices undermine women’s dignity, equality, and right to life, and also breach international human rights obligations.
On 26 January 2020, lawyer Ishrat Hasan filed the petition. Following hearings on the petition, on 3 February that year, a HC bench comprising Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman issued a rule.
The rule asked why the failure to frame policies or guidelines to prevent disclosure of gender should not be declared illegal, and why the respondents should not be directed to formulate policies.
Seven respondents, including the health secretary, the women and children affairs secretary, the social welfare secretary, and the director general of health services, were asked to reply.
