Pune hospital kidney transplant case: Will not arrest accused doctors, cops tell HC

The Pune police on Tuesday told the Bombay High Court that it will not arrest or take any coercive action against a robotic surgeon and three other doctors of a private hospital who were named in an FIR earlier this year in an alleged case of organ transplant malpractice. The statement was made after a vacation bench of Justices NW Sambre and Anil Pansare asked why the police was in ''such hurry to arrest these highly qualified doctors''.

The state's counsel Aruna Pai then submitted that the investigating officer in the case had said the police was not going to arrest the doctors yet and that it simply wanted to ask them some questions related to the probe. The bench accepted the statement and also said, in an interim order, that in case the police decide to make arrests in the case, it must give the petitioner doctors notice 72 hours prior to such arrest. The bench was presiding over writ petitions filed by Dr Himesh Gandhi and three other doctors named in the case as accused, seeking that the FIR against them be quashed.

Earlier this month, the Pune police booked 15 people, including the top management and some doctors at the private Ruby Hall Clinic, after it came to light that the recipient of a kidney transplant surgery had forged documents and paid money to a woman, who in turn had pretended to be his wife and donated one of her kidneys to him.

The Transplantation of Human Organs Act permits only altruistic donations from living donors and prohibits any form of monetary transaction between recipients and living organ donors.

In his plea filed through advocates Ashish Satpute and Pushpa Ganediwala, Dr Gandhi said the approvals for such transplants are granted by the state's regional transplant authority. An interview is conducted by the concerned hospital subsequently and after that the concerned nephrologist and surgeons perform the transplant procedure. The petitioner doctors said they had no role in the verification process and that doctors in any hospital did not even have the means to verify documentary evidence for transplant surgeries.

Advocate Satpute also submitted a previous judgment of the Supreme Court to argue that in cases of alleged transplant malpractice, the local police was not the competent authority investigate. Such investigation must be carried out by a designated competent authority as per the Act. The HC will hear the matter further in June this year.

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