MAJOR PANKAJ RAI Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner -party -in -person has inter alia sought a direction to the respondent 2 to file a complaint against the respondents 2 to 17 before the First Class Magistrate for the offences punishable under Sections 18, 19 and 20 of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994 ('the said Act' for short) having regard to the provisions of Section 22(1)(a) of the said Act. Major Pankaj Rai, the petitioner -party -in -person submits that his wife Seema Rai was subjected to the kidney pancreas transplantation without there being any need for the same. He submits that the imposition of surgery was actuated by the greed of the hospital authorities. He submits that his wife was not in a position to withstand the surgery. It was not an emergency situation. It was an elective surgery. She could have survived even without undergoing the transplantation surgery.

(2.) HE further submits that the respondent 7 -Hospital did not have the licence to perform the pancreas transplantation surgery. The licence given was confined only to do the kidney, liver and homograph transplantation surgery. He submits that the patient's consent was not taken for performing the surgery. He submits that his wife's name was not registered with the third respondent for receiving the pancreas.

(3.) SRI C.V. Nagesh, the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the respondents 7 to 9 denies the allegations made by the petitioner. He has raised a threshold bar to the maintainability of this petition. He submits that no doubt the appropriate authority is empowered to file the complaint under Section 22(1) of the said Act, but Section 22(1)(b) enables the aggrieved person to give 60 days notice to the appropriate authority of his intention to make a complaint to the Court. He also brings to my notice the provisions contained in Section 22(3) of the said Act, as per which the appropriate authority can be directed by the Magistrate to make available the copies of the relevant records in its possession.