Kidney racket: Court rejects doctors' anticipatory bail pleas

With investigators planning to plumb deeper into the alleged kidney racket at a multi speciality hospital in Powai, a court here today rejected the anticipatory bail pleas of two doctors in the case, after the arrest of five doctors two days ago.

The anticipatory bail applications of Veena Swelikar (general surgeon) and Suvin Shetty (consulting pathologist) were rejected by Judge Khawaja Farooq Ahmed of Dindoshi sessions court here after Powai police said the irinterrogation was needed to unearth the entire racket.

Both the doctors of L H Hiranandani hospital moved the court yesterday seeking pre-arrest bail arguing they had followed rules while screening the donor and the recipient before the kidney transplant procedure.

The racket was exposed after the police were tipped off that a kidney transplant operation had been scheduled for July 14 at the hospital where donor and recipient were not related.

The operation on Brijkishor Jaiswal, the recipient, was stopped at the last moment as police found that the woman who was donating him the kidney was not his real wife, contrary to the papers submitted by the duo. The woman had pretended to be Jaiswal's wife only to be able to donate him the kidney for monetary gains, accordingto police.

Defence counsel Brian D'lima said certain papers given to the scrutiny committee (at the hospital before carrying out the transplant) had turned out to be forged.

Also, a videograph was conducted and both the doctors received clearance from the committee paving way for the surgical procedure, he said.  D'lima also argued that it was not a doctor's job to find out whether the documents were forged or genuine and said since they were full-time doctors they should be granted relief as in the case of Jaiswal (recipient), who is out on bail. 

But the court rejected the argument saying Jaiswal's case cannot be compared with the doctors as the former was a dialysis patient.

The prosecution as well as the investigating officer told the court that the offence was of a very serious nature and their interrogation was required to widen the probe to findout if anybody else had received kidney using similar subterfuge and if the hospital authorities were involved.

Police is also investigating if there was any exchange of money among the doctors, agents and donors in the alleged racket besides studying the Call Detail Records (CDRs) of the doctors and the racketeers arrested earlier.