The High Court today directed authorities concerned to properly follow the guidelines formulated by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) that discouraged disclosure of the sex of unborn babies for non-medical reasons.

The court also ordered the health ministry to preserve the database of the test reports of the unborn children.

The HC bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Kazi Zinat Hoque delivered the verdict following a four-year old writ petition that sought prohibition of prenatal sex detection in order to ensure protection of the babies and pregnant mothers.

DGHS' lawyer Tirtha Salil Pal told The Daily Star that the hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres have been discouraged to disclose the sex of unborn children for non-medical or social reasons, but they can detect and disclose the sex for the treatment of the unborn babies.

Citing the guideline, he said the hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres that have capacity to detect and disclose prenatal sex will not indicate and will not run any advertisement that they can do it.

Doctors and nurses will be trained in such a manner so that they are discouraged to disclose the prenatal sex, he said.

The details of the HC verdict will be known when its full text will be released.

Ishrat Hasan, a Supreme Court lawyer, filed the petition as a public interest litigation with the HC on January 26, 2020 seeking necessary orders on the authorities concerned to prohibit the sex detection of unborn babies and to stop selling, transferring or handling any machine used for gender detection of unborn babies.

Following the petition, another HC bench on February 3, 2020 issued a rule asking the authorities to explain why they should not be directed to frame a guideline to prevent sex detection of unborn babies.

During hearing of the rule, DGHS submitted the guideline on January 29 this year to the HC saying that the detection of sex during pregnancy has been discouraged.

The guideline is titled as "National Guideline for the Prevention of Son Preference and the Risk of Gender- Biased Sex Selection, 2022".

Ishrat Hasan herself moved the petition while Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta represented the state during hearing on the matter.

* In a previous version of this report, it was erroneously stated that the High Court ruled barring disclosure of the sex of unborn babies, when the HC had in fact directed that guidelines discouraging the disclosure be followed. We regret the error.