Hiranandani CEO, 4 doctors, in judicial custody till August 26

A magistrate’s court on Saturday sent five doctors, including the CEO of LH Hiranandani Hospital, to judicial custody till August 26 in the alleged kidney donation racket case. The Powai police investigating the alleged kidney racket told the court that its investigation of the arrested doctors was complete and it did not require additional days of custody.

The Powai police had on Tuesday night arrested five doctors from the Hiranandani hospital, including its CEO Dr Sujit Chatterjee, medical director Anurag Naik, nephrologist Dr Mukesh Shete and urologists Dr Mukesh Shah and Dr Prakash Shetty. They were arrested for negligence and booked under the Transplant of Human Organs Act.

The court had on Wednesday granted the police custody till August 13. The Powai police who presented the accused at Bandra magistrate court told the court that they had sufficiently investigated the doctors and they no longer required their police custody. The court then sent them to judicial custody till August 26. Following this, the legal counsel for the doctors senior advocate Abad Ponda applied for bail for the doctors, the hearing for the same is scheduled for August 16.

The Powai police have till date arrested 14 people in the racket, including the patient Brijkishore Jasiwal, the donor Shobha Thakur and the kingpin Bijendra Bisen. Thakur was recently granted bail and is said to have returned home to her native in Anand, Gujarat. Sources said the officials are looking for three more, one of them, Sunder Singh, an informant in the said case, and the other Vinod Patel, who has been named in kidney racket cases in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.