Kidney Racket Update: 1,000 page chargesheet filed against Hiranandani doctors

Mumbai: A fresh turn took place in the Mumbai  kidney racket case, after a more than  1,000 page charge sheet was filed by the Powai police, against 15 people including the five doctors of the Hiranandani Hospital.

The chargesheet has been attached with statements of 49 witnesses, including that of prime witness Sundar Singh (24), state directorate of health services (DHS) report that pointed to negligence on doctors' part, including hospital CEO Dr Sujit Chatterjee, as well as video records and fake documents reports TOI.

The case is of an illicit kidney transplant that was queued to be conducted on Brijkishore Jaiswal (54), a trader from Surat, but was stopped midway after it was revealed that the donor's "wife's" identity and documents including her Birth cirtificate and Adhar card were all forged.

The case was busted on July 14 this year,  with five doctors were arrested for their alleged involvement in the racket. Mediators, Bisen, two of his aides Bharatbhushan Sharma (62) and Iqbal Khan (40), were also arrested in the case.

Read Also: Mumbai: Kidney racket busted at Hiranandani Hospital 

Hospital CEO Sujit Chatterjee, Medical Director Anurag Naik, medicos Mukesh Shetye, Prakash Shetty and Mukesh Shah were arrested on August 9 and were subsequently ordered to be released on bail of Rs. 30,000 each in August.

Also Read: Kidney Racket All 5 Doctors Of Hiranandani Hospital Get Bail

The police have now filed a 1,000 plus page chargesheet in the case, which was submitted before the 66th Andheri metropolitan magistrate court, subjugating the accused five doctors and accomplices under Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Human Organs Transplant Act, TOI reports

A supplementary chargesheet is also expected as the investigators points out some more arrests to be made in the proceedings of the case investigations for other suspects including Suvin Shetty (40), Veena Shivlikar (53) and the agent Vinod Patel.

MumbaiMirror states that the Directorate of Health Services had before notified the hospital administration of suspected involvement of hospital's transplant coordinator Nilesh Kamble, into taking bribes for forging papers and giving way to the illicit transplants done within the facility month before the case was busted.

Further report states that, neither medical director Anurag Naik nor CEO Sujeet Chatterjee took a probe into the matter or acted upon it, where finally the case was revealed worldwide. No response was given to DHS on the suspected revelation.

Confrontations later on revealed that the hospital had let off Kamble just with a warning by authorities with a mail. While no counselling was given to him regarding the same.

Facts in the Chargesheet

• The chargesheet includes the letter that Directorate of Health Services wrote regarding the suspect of Kamble being involved in the racket to Anurag Naik on June 3. It read "as transplant coordinator, it was Kamble's job to prepare paperwork for transplants, which would then be examined by a committee at the hospital, before a surgery was green-lighted. It was Kamble who had prepared the fraudulent documents in the transplant that was halted on July 14".


•  The police had recovered Rs 8 lakh from Kamble's house just a day after the bust, calling it is the kickback he extracted for forging the documents to show that Surat-based patient Brijkishore Jaiswal was getting a kidney from his wife Rekhadevi, when in fact the donor was a destitute mother of five, Shobhana Thakur. Jaiswal,( patient) who was accused in the case along with Thakur, died on August 31 after getting interim bail.


• A pointer in the charge sheet affirmed that a memo was submitted to DHS by the hospital authorities, said a state-appointed technical committee, comprising doctors Gauri Rathod, Sujata Patwardhan and Kalpana Mehta, in its report. When the panel interrogated Anurag Naik, he admitted that neglecting to respond to DHS's letter was a "mistake".


• Statements of 49 witnesses, including that of prime witness Sundar Singh (24), a state directorate of health services (DHS).  The report pointed to negligence on doctors' part, including hospital CEO Dr Sujit Chatterjee, as well as video records and fake documents.

 

The final DHS report is not yet submitted against pathologist Suvin Shetty (40), Veena Shivlikar (53) and the agent Vinod Patel. All the three may be arrested based on the report. The report further showed Dr B P Kadam, the DHS representative in the hospital authorization committee, as "negligent" in approving the transplant.

Hearing on the charge sheet is scheduled for October 21 by Judge Ashwini Lokhande.