Will not arrest accused doctors, Pune cops tell Bombay HC

The Pune police told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday that it will not arrest, or, take any coercive action against a Robotic surgeon, and three other doctors of a private hospital, who were named in an FIR earlier this year in an alleged case of organ transplant malpractice.

The police made the statement after a vacation bench of Justices NW Sambre and Anil Pansare asked why the police were in "such hurry to arrest these highly qualified doctors?"

The state's counsel Aruna Pai then submitted that the investigating officer in the case had said the police were not going to arrest the doctors yet and that it simply wanted to ask them some questions related to its probe.

The bench accepted the statement and also said, in an interim order, that in case the police decide to make arrests in the case, it must give the petitioner doctors a notice 72 hours prior to such arrest.

The bench was presiding over writ petitions filed by Dr Himesh Gandhi and three other doctors named in the case as accused, seeking that the FIR against them be quashed.

Earlier this month, the Pune police booked 15 people including the top management and some doctors at the private Ruby Hall Clinic, after it came to light that the recipient of a kidney transplant surgery had forged documents and paid money to a woman, who in turn had pretended to be his wife and donated one of her kidneys to him.

The HC has kept the petition for hearing in June.