Conceding the demands of the government, the Supreme Court on Thursday permitted Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) doctors with specialised training to perform family planning operations in the country
A bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said that the order pronounced on March 1, 2005 by the court would be rectified and MBBS doctors with specialised training would be allowed to perform vasectomy and tubectomy operations due to shortage of doctors.

The Union health ministry had filed an application before the court, saying that the government was unable to post gynaecologists with five years training to perform such operations in public health centres.
While hearing a public interests litigation (PIL) on deaths of persons after sterilisation, the Supreme Court had debarred simple MBBS doctors from performing such operations.

“Sterilisations, whether male or female, are among the safest of surgeries. But they carry, in our country, the burden of the largest mortality toll ever imposed by a welfare programme in the history of the world”, the Apex court had observed.