Delhi Police files chargesheet in kidney racket case

New Delhi, Sep 1 (PTI) The Delhi Police has filed acharge sheet before a court here in connection with a kidneyracket case that was busted at a private city hospital in Junethis year. Metropolitan Magistrate Arvind Bansal fixed September 5for deciding whether to take cognisance of the over 1000-pagecharge sheet filed by the Delhi Police against 17 accused inthe illegal organ trading in the capital including the allegedkingpin, T Rajkumar Rao, personal assistants of senior doctorsat Apollo Hospital, donors and some recipients. The police had arrested 13 accused by the end of July,while four others had surrendered before a court last month. Besides Rao, those who have been chargesheeted includehis mentor Deepak Kar, personal staff of doctors in Apollohospital Brajesh Chauhan, Aditya Singh and Shailesh Saxena,agents Satya Prakash and Devashish Moulik, four donors – UmeshSrivastava, Neelu Srivastava, Bhanu Pratap and Maumita Moulik,organ recipients Ashutosh Gautam, his father and three othersand one Aseem Sikdar. They have been chargesheeted under various provisions ofthe IPC and the Transplantation of Human Organs Act. Earlier, the court had denied bail to Ashutosh, son of aDJB official, observing that the process of transplantationprima facie appeared to be a "pre-planned criminal conspiracy"and a huge some of money to the tune of Rs 24 lakh was said tohave exchanged hands during the process. "It is observed that people understand and know thathuman organs are not commodities of trade. The legal andethical principles associated with organ donation andtransplantation must be strictly followed," it had said. The police had claimed that some personal staff ofdoctors at the hospital were running a kidney racket andbringing donors from different parts of the country to Delhi. Some touts used to lure financially poor people from WestBengal, Uttar Pradesh and other states for donating kidney inreturn of Rs 3-4 lakh, it was alleged. PTI AGARC