Section 30 is the enforcement engine of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994. It is the only doorway through which the State physically enters a genetic clinic, examines its registers, and seals the machine suspected of telling parents the sex of an unborn child. Yet for an enforcement provision it is strikingly spare: two sub-sections, one conferring the power to search, examine, seize and seal, and one folding in the Code of Criminal Procedure. The litigation it has generated is disproportionate to its length, because every word — reason to believe, appropriate authority, any officer authorised — has been fought over. The Supreme Court's decisions in Ravinder Kumar v. State of Haryana (2024) and Dr. Naresh Kumar Garg v. State of Haryana (2026) have now drawn the contours sharply: an individual member of a multi-member authority cannot order a raid, but evidence gathered in a defective raid is not automatically thrown out. This chapter dissects the text, the safeguards, and the case law that decides whether a clinic's sealing survives in court.
The text and architecture of Section 30
Section 30 is captioned "Power to search and seize records, etc." Sub-section (1) provides that if the Appropriate Authority has reason to believe that an offence under the Act has been or is being committed at any Genetic Counselling Centre, Genetic Laboratory, Genetic Clinic or any other place, such authority or any officer authorised in this behalf may, subject to such rules as may be prescribed, enter and search at all reasonable times with such assistance, if any, as such authority or officer considers necessary, such centre, laboratory, clinic or other place and examine any record, register, document, book, pamphlet, advertisement or any other material object found there, and seize and seal the same if the authority or officer has reason to believe that it may furnish evidence of the commission of an offence punishable under the Act. Sub-section (2) provides that the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 relating to searches and seizures shall, so far as may be, apply to every search or seizure made under the Act.
Three structural features deserve emphasis. First, the power is anchored in the Appropriate Authority constituted under Section 17 — it is not a general police power. Second, the threshold for entry is a subjective-objective standard of "reason to believe," the same phrase that recurs at the seizure stage. Third, the borrowing of CrPC procedure in sub-section (2) is not cosmetic: it imports the safeguards of search warrants, witnesses to a search, and the making of seizure memos, which is why courts measure PCPNDT searches against the standards of the general criminal procedure code. The provision sits alongside the regulatory architecture explained in our note on regulation of genetic counselling centres and clinics; Section 30 is what gives that registration regime teeth.
Who is the "Appropriate Authority"
Section 30 cannot be understood without Section 17, which constitutes the Appropriate Authority. At the district level the Authority is a multi-member body — typically a Chairperson (the Civil Surgeon or Chief Medical Officer), an officer of the relevant department, and an eminent woman or representative of a women's organisation. This composition is deliberate. Parliament did not want the decision to raid a clinic, with all its reputational and economic consequences, to rest on one official's say-so. The detailed contours of who occupies these seats are explored in our companion note on the key definitions and in the chapter on the Central Supervisory Board, which sits at the apex of the monitoring pyramid.
The significance of the multi-member design is that, when Section 30(1) says "the Appropriate Authority," it means the body collectively, not any one of its constituents. This reading — long urged by defence counsel and finally accepted by the Supreme Court — converts Section 17's composition from an administrative detail into a jurisdictional precondition for a lawful search. A raid ordered by the Chairperson alone is, on this view, a raid ordered by a person who is not the Appropriate Authority at all.
Ravinder Kumar: a single member cannot order a search
The leading authority is Ravinder Kumar v. State of Haryana, 2024 INSC 684, decided on 13 September 2024 by a Bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Augustine George Masih. The Court held that a search and seizure under Section 30(1) must be authorised by the District Appropriate Authority acting collectively, and that a decision taken by a single member is illegal. In the Court's words, "only the Chairman or any other member acting alone cannot authorise search under sub-section (1) of Section 30. It must be a decision of the Appropriate Authority. If a single member authorises a search, it will be completely illegal."
The reasoning flows from the statutory scheme. Section 17 constitutes a multi-member body precisely so that the grave decision to enter and search premises is the product of collective deliberation. The phrase "reason to believe" in Section 30(1) is a safeguard against arbitrary action, and that belief must be formed by the Authority as a body, not by one of its members in isolation. Where no formal decision of the Appropriate Authority exists, the Court held that the search itself is entirely illegal, and continuing a prosecution founded on such a search would amount to an abuse of the process of law. Ravinder Kumar thus established that the authorisation requirement is jurisdictional, not merely procedural.
The decision also addresses the tension between speed and process. Sex-determination offences are fleeting — a clinic can erase a digital record or send away a patient in minutes — so there is an obvious enforcement argument for letting a single official act swiftly. The Court acknowledged that expedited decision-making is permissible given the Act's objectives, but held that the need for speed cannot dissolve the requirement of a collective decision: the Authority can meet and decide quickly, but it cannot delegate the decision to one member. The takeaway for States is administrative rather than legal — Appropriate Authorities must put in place mechanisms (including documented collective decisions, even at short notice) so that genuine urgency does not produce a void authorisation that collapses the eventual prosecution.
Naresh Kumar Garg: illegal search, admissible evidence
If Ravinder Kumar tightened the authorisation rule, Dr. Naresh Kumar Garg v. State of Haryana, 2026 INSC 176, decided by Justices Manoj Misra and Ujjal Bhuyan, clarified the consequence of breaching it. The search in Garg had been authorised by the Chairperson alone — an infraction of Section 30 on the Ravinder Kumar standard. But the Court refused to quash the prosecution on that ground. It held that "while the search may be illegal, the materials or evidence gathered or collected in the course of such search can still be acted or relied upon subject to the rule of relevancy."
The Court was careful to keep two questions apart: whether the search was lawful, and whether the evidence it yielded is admissible. The first is governed by Section 30 and Section 17; the second is governed by the law of evidence, under which relevancy — not the legality of collection — is the test of admissibility. An illegal search may expose the searching officers to consequences and may colour the weight a court attaches to the seized material, but it does not operate as an automatic exclusionary rule. This is why Garg and Ravinder Kumar are best read together rather than as contradictions: the former addresses the validity of the search, the latter the fate of the evidence.
Why India has no exclusionary rule: Pooran Mal
The doctrinal bedrock beneath Naresh Kumar Garg is Pooran Mal v. Director of Inspection (Investigation), AIR 1974 SC 348. There a Constitution Bench rejected the American-style exclusionary rule, holding that neither the Evidence Act nor any other law in force excludes relevant evidence on the ground that it was obtained through an illegal search or seizure. The test of admissibility is relevancy: if evidence is relevant to a matter in issue it is admissible, and the court is not concerned with how it was obtained. The Court declined to read a fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree principle into the "spirit of the Constitution."
Indian evidence law follows the English common-law position rather than the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence of the United States. That choice is what allows a PCPNDT court to convict on the strength of registers, Form F records and decoy-patient material seized in a search later found to be improperly authorised. The illegality may matter to the credibility and genuineness of the material, and it may invite scrutiny of whether the evidence was planted or tampered with, but it does not by itself defeat the prosecution. Pooran Mal is the silent premise of every PCPNDT judgment that upholds a conviction despite a flawed raid.
It is worth noting the limits of the rule. Pooran Mal does not licence illegality; it merely refuses to make illegality of collection a ground of inadmissibility. Where the illegality goes to the genuineness of the evidence itself — for instance, where there is a real risk that the seized document was fabricated or substituted because the search lacked proper witnesses — a court retains the discretion to view the material with caution and to attach little or no weight to it. The distinction the modern cases draw is therefore between admissibility (a question of relevancy, settled by Pooran Mal) and weight (a question of reliability, where the manner of seizure remains relevant). A defence that cannot exclude the evidence can still attack what it is worth.
"Reason to believe": the gateway safeguard
"Reason to believe" appears twice in Section 30(1): once as the trigger for entry and search, and once as the trigger for seizure and sealing. It is not a formula of art but a substantive safeguard. The belief must be honest, must rest on material, and must relate to the commission of an offence under the Act. A bald assertion, a vague tip-off or a mechanical recital will not do; nor will an inspection conducted as a fishing expedition. The Authority must be able to point to information that would lead a reasonable person in its position to suspect an offence.
Because Section 30(2) imports the CrPC, the "reason to believe" must ordinarily be recorded, and the seizure must be documented in a memo witnessed in accordance with the Code. This dovetails with the recording obligations that bind clinics under the Act — the duty to maintain registers and the Form F records that document each prenatal diagnostic procedure. The interaction between the clinic's record-keeping duties and the Authority's power to examine and seize those records is what makes Section 30 effective in practice: the very documents the law compels a clinic to keep become the evidence the Authority seizes. See our discussion of the disclosure prohibition in communicating the sex of the foetus, the substantive offence these searches are designed to detect.
The CrPC overlay under sub-section (2)
Sub-section (2) provides that the CrPC provisions on searches and seizures apply "so far as may be" to searches under the Act. The qualifier matters. It means the Code applies to the extent consistent with the special scheme of the PCPNDT Act, and where the Act makes its own provision, the Act prevails. The most consequential implication is that the search-warrant and seizure-memo machinery of the Code — Sections 100, 102 and 165 of the 1973 Code, now mirrored in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 — informs how a PCPNDT search must be conducted: independent witnesses, a list of seized articles, and a contemporaneous record.
But the overlay does not convert a PCPNDT search into an ordinary police search. As Section 28 makes clear, the Act is a self-contained code on investigation and prosecution. The CrPC supplies the procedure of searching; it does not enlarge the class of persons who may search. Only the Appropriate Authority or its authorised officer may invoke Section 30. This distinction is the hinge on which the police-power cases turn.
The police cannot investigate on their own
A recurring misconception is that the police may register an FIR and investigate a sex-determination complaint. The Allahabad High Court squarely rejected this in Dr. Brij Pal Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2024:AHC:159207, decided on 30 September 2024 by Justice Anish Kumar Gupta. The Court held that registration of an FIR for violations of the PCPNDT Act is impermissible and that no investigation by the police is allowed; the police may be associated with an investigation, but in all cases the investigation must be conducted by the Appropriate Authority under Sections 17 and 28.
The logic is that the Act is a special law and a complete code, containing its own provisions for investigation, search and seizure, and the filing of complaints. Cognizance flows from Section 28, which bars a court from taking cognizance except on a complaint by the Appropriate Authority or an authorised officer (or by a person who has given the requisite notice). The police role is auxiliary — providing force where there is resistance — and cannot displace the Authority's primacy. This reinforces the reading of Section 30: the power to search is tethered to the Authority, and a raid spearheaded by the police without the Authority's collective decision is doubly infirm.
Sealing machines: the proportionality limit
Section 30 permits the seizure and sealing of "any other material object," which in practice includes the ultrasound or sonography machine alleged to have been misused. But seizure is not perpetual confiscation. In District Appropriate Authority v. Kaushik Babulal Shah, 2025 INSC 637, decided on 8 May 2025 by Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Prasanna B. Varale, the Supreme Court declined to maintain the seal on a sonography machine that had remained sealed since 2009 — roughly sixteen years. The Court found no justifiable reason to keep the machine sealed for an indefinite period pending proceedings, observing that indefinite sealing would only render the machine useless or worthless.
The decision injects a proportionality principle into Section 30. The power to seal is instrumental — its purpose is to preserve evidence and prevent continued offending, not to inflict an open-ended economic penalty before any conviction. Once the evidentiary value has been preserved (the Court noted the Act's two-year preservation standard for records), the continued immobilisation of expensive equipment must be justified afresh. Kaushik Babulal Shah signals that Authorities cannot treat sealing as a substitute for prosecution.
The point is sharpened by the practical reality that diagnostic equipment depreciates and becomes obsolete. A machine sealed for a decade and a half is, for all commercial purposes, destroyed even if the practitioner is ultimately acquitted. The Court's insistence that sealing be revisited rather than left to run indefinitely aligns Section 30 with the broader administrative-law principle that a coercive power must be exercised no further than its purpose demands. For aspirants, Kaushik Babulal Shah is a useful counterpoint to the enforcement-heavy thrust of CEHAT: the courts demand vigorous implementation, but not at the cost of disproportionate pre-trial confiscation.
The implementation backdrop: CEHAT and after
Section 30's enforcement vigour cannot be divorced from the public-interest litigation that shaped the Act's administration. In Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT) v. Union of India, (2003) 8 SCC 398, the Supreme Court found that the Act was simply not being implemented and issued a battery of directions: constitution of Appropriate Authorities, regular meetings of the Central and State Supervisory Boards, maintenance and publication of records, seizure and sealing of machines used in contravention of the Act, and speedy disposal of pending cases. These directions fed directly into the 2003 amendment that broadened the Act to cover pre-conception sex selection.
The Court returned to the theme in Voluntary Health Association of Punjab v. Union of India, (2013) 4 SCC 1, summoning Health Secretaries of the worst-affected States and pressing for genuine enforcement, faster trials, and suspension of the licences of convicted practitioners. Read against this backdrop, the courts' insistence in Ravinder Kumar on collective authorisation is not anti-enforcement; it is a demand that the formidable power conferred by Section 30 be exercised lawfully so that resulting prosecutions actually stick. The origins of this enforcement drive are traced in our note on the object and background of the Act.
What the search is meant to prove
A search under Section 30 is never an end in itself; it is a means of gathering evidence of a substantive offence. The two offences most often targeted are the disclosure of the sex of the foetus, and the conduct of sex selection or sex determination. The seized registers, the Form F records, and decoy or sting material are deployed to establish these offences at trial. Our chapter on prohibited determination of sex explains the elements the prosecution must prove, and why documentary evidence seized under Section 30 is so often decisive.
Because the offences are technical and turn on records, courts treat non-maintenance or falsification of records as powerful circumstantial evidence. The 2003 amendment also strengthened the presumption regime, so that gaps in records cut against the practitioner. This is why a clinic's compliance posture — accurate Form F entries, properly maintained registers — is its first and best defence, and why a Section 30 search so frequently produces the very evidence on which a conviction rests.
Practical checklist: validity of a Section 30 search
For an exam or a courtroom, the validity of a PCPNDT search can be tested against a short checklist. Was the search authorised by the Appropriate Authority acting collectively, or by a single member acting alone? Under Ravinder Kumar, single-member authorisation is illegal. Was the "reason to believe" formed by the body and capable of articulation, or was it a mechanical or speculative exercise? Were the CrPC safeguards in sub-section (2) observed — independent witnesses, a seizure memo, a contemporaneous list of seized items? Was the seizure of equipment proportionate and time-limited, or has it become an indefinite confiscation contrary to Kaushik Babulal Shah?
Crucially, even if the answers expose illegality, the defence cannot assume the evidence will be excluded. Under Pooran Mal and Naresh Kumar Garg, relevant material survives a defective search, subject to scrutiny of its genuineness. The realistic defence strategy therefore attacks the genuineness and chain of custody of the seized records, and challenges the maintainability of a prosecution founded on a search with no valid authorising decision — the Ravinder Kumar abuse-of-process argument — rather than relying on a blanket exclusionary rule that Indian law does not recognise. Readers should also consult the Act's PCPNDT hub for the full statutory map.
Frequently asked questions
Can a single member of the District Appropriate Authority order a search under Section 30?
No. In Ravinder Kumar v. State of Haryana (2024 INSC 684) the Supreme Court held that authorisation must be a collective decision of the Appropriate Authority constituted under Section 17. A search ordered by the Chairman or any single member acting alone is illegal, and a prosecution founded on it can amount to an abuse of process.
If a Section 30 search is illegal, is the seized evidence automatically thrown out?
No. Following Pooran Mal v. Director of Inspection (AIR 1974 SC 348) and Dr. Naresh Kumar Garg v. State of Haryana (2026 INSC 176), India has no exclusionary rule. Evidence gathered in an illegal search remains admissible if it is relevant, subject to scrutiny of its genuineness. The illegality of the search and the admissibility of evidence are separate questions.
What does "reason to believe" require under Section 30?
It is a safeguard against arbitrary action. The belief that an offence has been or is being committed must be honest, must rest on material, and must be formed by the Appropriate Authority as a body. A vague tip-off or a mechanical recital does not satisfy the standard, and a fishing-expedition search will not pass muster.
Can the police register an FIR and investigate a PCPNDT offence?
No. In Dr. Brij Pal Singh v. State of U.P. (2024:AHC:159207) the Allahabad High Court held that FIRs cannot be registered and the police cannot investigate PCPNDT offences. The Act is a complete code; investigation, search and the filing of complaints are reserved to the Appropriate Authority under Sections 17 and 28, with the police playing only an auxiliary role.
Can a seized ultrasound machine be sealed indefinitely?
No. In District Appropriate Authority v. Kaushik Babulal Shah (2025 INSC 637) the Supreme Court refused to maintain a seal that had lasted about sixteen years, holding there was no justifiable reason to keep a sonography machine sealed indefinitely pending proceedings, as it would render the machine worthless. Sealing must be proportionate and time-limited.
How does Section 30(2) bring in the Code of Criminal Procedure?
Sub-section (2) applies the CrPC provisions on searches and seizures, "so far as may be," to every search under the Act. This imports safeguards like independent witnesses and seizure memos, but it does not enlarge who may search. The power remains tethered to the Appropriate Authority, and the special scheme of the PCPNDT Act prevails where it makes its own provision.