Organ donation: HC asks Centre, Delhi govt to frame guidelines

Delhi High Court today asked the Centre, Delhi government and others to frame guidelines with regard to organ donation in hospitals here.
"Draft proper guidelines for the help of all such stakeholders," a division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw said while posting the matter for hearing on August 13.
The High Court also asked advocate Ajay Verma, amicus curiae, to incorporate All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Delhi Police to make the whole process of organ donation smooth.
The court's direction came after taking note of a letter alleging that due to procedural delays the body of a woman donor could not be utilised by the Organ Retrieval and Banking Organisation (ORBO) of the AIIMS.

It had treated the letter of V K Gupta, an official working with NTPC, as a PIL and said, "due to catch-22 situation" the body of Gupta's sister late Sushila Gupta could not be utilised by ORBO.
Earlier, the court had issued notices to the Health Ministry, AIIMS, Delhi government and the city police saying that the committee of judges, which decided to treat the letter as a PIL, felt that regulations can be framed to ensure that such incidents do not recur.

Referring to the letter, the bench, had said Gupta had already registered herself with ORBO in AIIMS pledging her body for "donation or research work" and she died on March 10, 2012.

However, the authorities at AIIMS had asked the brother of the woman donor to get no objection certificate (NoC) from Delhi Police, the court had said.
Police, in turn, pressed for post-mortem examination before granting NoC and by the time NoC was given, the body was rendered useless, it had said.