HC asks Maha to continue with committees for organ transplant

The Bombay High Court today asked the Maharashtra government to continue with its district-level authorisation committees set up to allow organ transplants until new panels are constituted in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Centre.
The direction was given by a bench of justices Abhay Oka and Gautam Patel, which was hearing petitions filed by Sidhant Pai and others urging permission to undergo transplantation of kidneys required by them as authorisation committee had not granted them approval in this regard.
The government today informed the high court that both the houses of the state legislature had passed a resolution on December 18 to adopt Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Act 2011 for the state in accordance with article 252 (1) of the Constitution.

"The Amendment Act came into force with effect from December 18, 2015," the government told the court.
The state also informed that currently, authorisation committees have been constituted according to the pre-revised rules, which were in force until the Amendment Act was adopted.
These committees would now be reconstituted in accordance with the provisions of the 2014 rules framed by the Centre, the government counsel added.

The state government informed that the Centre had recently framed rules to allow transplantation of organs into bodies of recipients and the state would need to modify its own rules accordingly.
The petition was filed by Pai in 2013 and the HC had suggested that rules may be framed in this regard so that the committee may consider in future for other cases.

The petitions had harped on the delay in disposal of
applications made before the committee for grant of approval to the proposal of a donor for removal of a kidney before his death for transplantation to a recipient who is not a near relative.
The recipients are the persons who are suffering from renal failure and are in urgent need to undergo kidney transplantation, the petitions said.
Considering many such petitions filed before the HC, a bench had earlier requested the petitioners' counsel Uday Warunjikar and the Government Pleader to address the court on various aspects like the delay in disposal of applications by the Committee, the procedure to be followed by such Committee and the infrastructure to be made available to this panel.

The hearing has been adjourned till next week.