State’s plea against guru’s book on siring kids junked

MUMBAI: In a relief for ayurveda guru Balaji Tambe, 76, the Bombay high court quashed a complaint filed by the government against him for his book Ayurvedic Garbha Sanskar which allegedly suggested methods and rituals to have a male child.
Justices A V Nirgude and V L Achliya of the Aurangabad bench heard a petition by Pune-based Tambe to quash the criminal complaint filed on June 13 under Sections 3A (prohibition of sex determination) and 22 (prohibition of advertisement relating to pre-natal sex selection) of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act.The magistrate took cognisance and issued summons to Tambe, the publisher and a bookstall owner the same day.
Tambe moved the HC to quash the complaint. His advocates, R B Raghuvanshi and D S Bagul, argued that it was “humiliation and harassment’’ for the doctor, who is well-known in the field of ayurveda, and the book had nothing to do with the determination of sex pre- or post-conception.
Agreeing with the advocates, the judges on August 9 said, “The filing of such a complaint and prosecuting a person for scholarly work done by him in the field of ayurveda is nothing but an act of gross abuse of the process of law.”
They said they were “rather surprised’’ that an expert panel’s decision was overlooked and the committee directed the taluka authorized officer to file a complaint. The panel had felt that what was alleged as objectionable was part of the approved syllabi for BAMS and MS (Gynaecology) of ayurvedic medicine.
The bench slammed the committee for “complete non-application of mind’’ while taking such “drastic action’’ to prosecute Tambe on the basis of a “few sentences’’ in the book by him without examining the context in which they are mentioned. It noted that the purpose of writing the book appeared to propagate knowledge of ayurveda as a branch of medical science and as a guide for the woman and family members for taking care before and after pregnancy, which includes baby care. “We find nothing in the book which remotely suggests that the petitioner has written and published the book with an intention to directly or indirectly suggest any method, procedure or techniques for determinations of sex or giving birth to male child,’’ the judges concluded.