Union of India vs Indian Radiological and Imaging Association and Ors. etc. etc.

6 of PCPNDT Six Months Training Rules, 2014 – High Court held that there is absence e of provision under the Act empowering any of the bodies or the Central Government to prescribe qualifications for practicing medicine with the aid of an ultrasound imaging equipment or to prescribe nature and content of the curriculum or duration of the qualification – Appeal to Supreme Court – Application seeking stay of order of High Court – Held: s. 32(1) confers rule-making power upon Central Government for “carrying out the provisions of the Act” and to specify minimum qualification for persons to be employed at genetic counselling centres, laboratories and clinics – Parliament which has unquestioned authority and legislative competence to frame the law, considered it necessary to empower the Central Government to frame Rules to govern the qualification of persons employed in genetic counselling centres, laboratories and clinics – Wisdom of the competent legislature in adopting the policy cannot be substituted by the Court in exercise of power of judicial review – The Training Rules, 2014 were made by the Central Government in exercise of the power conferred by Parliament – Specification of qualifications should be read in a purposive sense which will fulfill the object of law – Even on a plain and natural construction of the words used by Parliament, specification of qualifications must necessarily comprehend the power to prescribe training – The rationale is that the training would sensitize the person of the legislation which has been enacted to deal with a serious social evil and be conscious of the misuse of sex-selection tests – Pre-natal diagnostic procedures are also susceptible to grave misuse – Prima facie the Rules are neither ultra vires the parent legislation nor do they suffer from manifest arbitrariness – The judgment of the High Court also squarely impinges upon the directions issued by Supreme Court in *Voluntary Health Association case – Therefore, judgment of the High Court needs to be stayed during pendency of the proceedings of the case – It is directed that *Voluntary Health Association case to be strictly enforced by all the States and Union Territories untrammelled by any other court – Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques s (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Rules, 1996 – r. 3.3(1)(b) – Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) (Six Months Training) Rules, 2014 – s. 6. *Voluntary Health Association of Punjab v. Union of India (2016) 10 SCC 265 : [2016] 8 SCR 192 –

referred to.