A day after the arrest of five doctors of Mumbai’s lH Hiranandani Hospital, including its chief executive officer (CEO) and medical director, in connection with the illegal kidney donation racket, the Maharashtra Government said on Wednesday that it had cancelled the hospital’s kidney transplant licence, even as the arrested doctors were remanded by a suburban court in police custody till August 13.
Talking to mediapersons, Maharashtra Health Minister Deepak Sawant confirmed that the State Government had cancelled temporarily the kidney transplant licence of the lH Hiranandani Hospital at Powai, following the expose of the scam. “No kidney transplants are happening there. We have kept the hospital’s kidney transplant licence at abeyance. The licence will be
cancelled permanently if the allegations against the hospital are proved in a court of law,” the Minister said.
The five doctors of the Hiranandani Hospital — CEO Dr Sujit Chatterjee, Medical Director Dr Anurag Naik, Dr Mukesh Shete, Dr Mukesh Shah and Dr Prakash Shetty — who were arrested by the Powai police under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) on Tuesday night, were on Wednesday produced before a suburban Magistrate’s court, which remanded them in police custody for the next three days.
On his part, Public Prosecutor Sudhir Sapkale sought 14 days’ remand of the arrested doctors on the ground that they had been involved in the scam from the day one, that a committee appointed by the State Government had established their act of negligence and that the police wanted to subject them to intense custodial interrogation.
However, Defence lawyer Abad Ponda opposed the remand on the ground that the main accused in the case had already been granted pre-arrest bail by a city court, that the man who forged documents in the case was roaming around free and that they had not produced any evidence against the doctors.
Prior to the arrest of five doctors, the Powai police had arrested eight people and had named Vijendra Bisen, as the mastermind behind the illegal kidney donation racket. The Prosecution’s charge is that Bisen runs the racket in Maharashtra and neighbouring Gujarat.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Ashok Dudhe said that the Powai police had seized documents from the hospital “We have found that the doctors were negligent and also did not follow the laid down procedures in the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994,” Dudhe said.
Dudhe said that the investigators would speak to all donors and recipients of organ transplantation at the hospital. “A lot of documents and records have been seized. We are studying them,” he said.