Cuttack, June 26: Orissa High Court today admitted a petition seeking release of Dr N. Prabhakar Babu, the director (medical) of Seven Hills Hospital at Visakhapatnam, who was arrested in connection with an alleged kidney sale racket, and issued notice to the director general of police (Odisha) and the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack police commissioner.

The medical director of the corporate hospital was arrested by a special team from Manglabag police station in Cuttack on the night of June 16 under the Transplantation of Human Organ Act.

A division bench of Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice B.N. Mohapatra, issued the notices on a petition filed by N. Ratnakumari, wife of N.Prabhakar Babu, and posted the matter to June 30 for hearing along with the case diary.

“Accordingly, the court directed the investigating officer to be present on that day along with the case diary,” petitioner counsel Satyabrata Pradhan told The Telegraph.

The petitioner said: “The police has no power to register an FIR and arrest a person under the Transplantation of Human Organ Act.”

The alleged kidney sale racket had surfaced when one Namita Nayak of Cuttack, who had donated her kidney to Mohan Chandra Lenka of Bhubaneswar, lodged a complaint at Manglabag police station, stating that she was lured into the surgery and the financial commitment was not fulfilled.

The police had arrested Babu in Visakhapatnam on the ground that the kidney transplantation took place without the approval of the authorisation committee concerned. The no-objection certificate required in the case of organ transplantations taking place outside the state was also not available in this case.

Though the NOC is not required when a close relative is the donor, the hospital authorities did not follow the norms, ignoring even the need to verify the marriage certificate in case of a wife being the donor, the police had claimed.

The police had failed to bring Babu to Odisha for further investigation as he complained of chest pain and has since been under treatment at a Hyderabad hospital. Apart from Babu, five other persons, including the brother of the recipient, have been arrested.

According to police reports, one Sharmistha Nayak, allegedly along with her husband Dilip Nayak, had lured Namita into the kidney sale for a promised sum. Post surgery, she was paid 40 per cent of the assured sum. The entire deal was allegedly worked out by one Rashmiranjan Khatua, a middleman.

According to the Transplantation of Human Organ Act, organs can be donated by relatives of the patient. Namita was produced as Bonita Lenka, wife of Mohan Chandra Lenka with the help of forged documents. The hospital authorities had gone ahead with the surgery in March based on those documents, the police had claimed.