Fake NOC organ transplant case: Three including two doctors get bail from high court

JAIPUR: A single judge bench of Rajasthan high court on Thursday granted bail to Fortis Hospital doctors including Sandeep Gupta and Jitendra Goswami, and compounder Bhanu Lav vanshi, accused in the case of organ transplant through fake NOC . However, the bail petition of Bangladeshi citizens Ahsanul Kobir, Nurul Islam, Sukhmay Nandi, Suman Jana, and coordinator Vinod Singh was rejected by the court.

Justice Ganesh Ram Meena gave this direction on the bail petitions of the accused on Thursday.

Compounder Bhanu Lavvanshi had filed bail petitions through advocate Deepak Chauhan, Dr Sandeep Gupta through advocate Hemant Nahta, and Dr Jitendra Goswami through advocate Ripudaman Singh.

The court said in the verdict that Dr Sandeep Gupta had performed the operations only after presenting the NOC to the hospital administration, so it cannot be said that both the doctors were involved in the process of obtaining fake NOC or were aware of the fake NOC.

“Dr Sandeep Gupta was falsely implicated in sections 419 and 420 of IPC and later in TOHO Act . The prosecution has failed to prove that they were aware of fake NOC,” said Hemant Nahata, the counsel for Dr Sandeep Gupta.

Apart from this, according to the provisions of the Transplantation of Human Organs (TOHO) Act, they also had no role in preparing the NOC, he added.

At the same time, the court also accepted the argument of the defence that under section 22 of the TOHO Act, the court cannot take cognisance on the basis of the police charge sheet in the case.

Agreeing with the arguments of the defense, the court granted bail to the accused. While the bail petitions of accused Bangladeshi citizen Nurul Islam and others were rejected. “The crime of taking fake NOC for organ transplant is prima facie proved against them and it is a serious crime,” the court said.