Amritsar, September 27
Much before the enactment of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994, which bans the sale of vital human organs, the trade was very much prevalent in this city with the connivance of the doctors concerned.

A decade ago, the then public grievances officer (a PCS officer), Capt P.S. Shergill, in his voluminous 22-page report had recommended that the case be handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in order to make a foolproof case for conviction of the guilty doctors who had been playing with human lives for money. Captain Shergill had also recommended that “the case of the earnings of three doctors of a private hospital be forwarded to the Income Tax Department for income tax evaluation and recovery”.

Though the case was registered against the three doctors for indulging in an “illegal and unethical practice”, they continued to transplant kidneys by hoodwinking all concerned. In his report, the investigating officer reported that the doctors concerned had put a lot of pressure on him for stopping the inquiry.

The inquiry was constituted on the basis of complaints lodged by the then CPI MLA, Ms Vimla Dang, who took up the case of Balwinder Kumar (21), the only son of Mr Mehar Chand, a former Sarpanch of a village in Amritsar district who developed HIV positive due to ‘negligence’ of the doctor while transplanting the organ. The patient who was a student of B.Pharmacy first underwent a kidney transplant at the PGI, Chandigarh, in April 1991, with the organ donated by his mother. However, the patient was admitted in the local private hospital with the same problem the next year and the doctor attending upon him suggested the replacement of kidney. She (the doctor) promised to arrange the same against a payment. The father of the patient was asked to contact a senior doctor in New Delhi for arranging a ‘donor’. The kidney transplantation was carried out on August 25, 1992. The ‘donor’ got Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 was given to the doctor in New Delhi for sending the ‘donor’ to Amritsar.

But the trouble of the patient started increasing even after the transplantation and hence he was taken to the PGI where doctors declare that ‘donor’ was suffering from AIDS and, hence, the recipient had got the infection.

The former Sarpanch lost his only son in March, 1993. He lodged a complaint with the authorities concerned for giving exemplary punishment to the ‘guilty doctors’.

The complainant has been going from pillar to post to get justice, but in vain.

The investigating officer pointed out a number of case files where signatures of guardians were taken on blank papers. The report reads, “The hospital record is not reliable as it has been proved that the thumb impressions and signatures of donors and guardians and donors were obtained on blank papers and the details of certificates were filled later.”

The investigating officer in his report alleged that the record of the hospital was tampered with to hamper the investigation. During the inquiry, 17 kidney transplant operations were conducted in the local private hospital from July 1992 to December 1992. The doctors would charge from Rs 25,000 to Rs 80,000 from each case in those days.

Though a question was raised on the floor of the Punjab Assembly and the District Committee for Removal of Grievances and a case was registered against the three doctors, no action has been taken against anybody for a decade.

Though in the latest sale of kidneys, the local police has arrested 14 persons, including donors and middlemen, no action has been taken to book either doctors or recipients or members of the authorisation committee.

Veteran CPI leader Satya Pal Dang said the police was under pressure to allow the “influential” doctors and those who organise the “sale of human organs” to go scot-free.

Ms Laxmi Kanta Chawla, a former BJP MLA, said while the “poor donors” who had sold their kidneys for want of money were behind the bars on charges of furnishing “false affidavits”, the recipients and the organisers were not touched due to their connections with the high-ups.

Dr O.P. Mahajan, Principal, Government Medical College and Chairman of the Authorisation Committee which recommends cases of unrelated persons for kidney donations, claimed that the Health Minister, Dr R.C. Dogra, had directed him to go ahead with the proposed meeting to be held on October 1 for recommending the cases of kidney donors.