Date:27/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/27/stories/2007072753041200.htm

National

Specially trained doctors to perform sterilisation

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi: Accepting the Centre’s plea, the Supreme Court on Thursday permitted doctors with special training in sterilisation techniques to perform tubectomy and vasectomy operations.

A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice Dalveer Bhandari passed an order in this regard on an application filed by the Centre to modify the earlier directions. By an order dated March 1, 2005, the Supreme Court laid down guidelines and criteria for including names of doctors in the panel for entitling them to carry out sterilisation procedures.

Seeking modification of the order, the Centre, in an application, said: “The March 1, 2005 order has resulted in a huge drop in the availability of qualified doctors for performing sterilisation with a concomitant drop in sterilisation operations performed in 2005-06 and 2006-07 and the family planning programme has really suffered. This is at a stage when there is a large unmet need in terminal method in family planning .”