Ruby Hall kidney racket: Pune police book 15 people including donor

Police have registered a case against 15 persons, including the managing trustee of the Ruby Hall Clinic, a leading private hospital in the city, and some of its employees in connection with an alleged malpractice during a kidney transplant procedure in March this year, an official said on Thursday.

The offence was registered at Koregaon Park police station late on Wednesday evening based on a complaint lodged by the Maharashtra government's health department, he said.

"We have registered the case against 15 persons, including the Ruby Hall Clinic's managing trustee Parvez Grant and the staffers of the hospital. They also include the woman who donated her kidney, the recipient man and his wife," he said.

The accused were booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 (cheating), 465, 468, 471 (all pertaining to forgery), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and sections of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994, he said.

A woman from Kolhapur, who was allegedly promised Rs 15 lakh, had fraudulently posed as the wife of a man who needed a transplant and donated her kidney to a young woman patient. In turn, the young woman's mother donated her kidney to the man.

Such a swap involving two patients and their relatives is carried out when the patients cannot receive a kidney from their own kin because of a blood group mismatch.

On March 29, four days after undergoing the transplant surgery at the Ruby Hall Clinic, the woman had revealed her real identity after she had had a dispute over money.

The hospital had then alerted the police, which in turn reported the incident to the health department.

The department had later suspended the hospital's registration for organ transplantation, however, the Bombay High Court had stayed that order.

The functioning of the regional organ transplant authorisation committee was also temporarily suspended