Mumbai: Lid is off transplant scam

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Mumbai: A staffer of the zonal transplant authorisation committee (ZTAC), Tushar Savarkar, has been found guilty in the Sir Jamshedjee Jeejeebhoy (JJ) Hospital kidney racket by an internal investigation team of the Directorate Medical Education and Research.

The investigation, which took over a fortnight, revealed that Savarkar had accepted bribes in several of the 550 transplant cases which came up for approval during his tenure, which began in 2017. Further, the investigators have said it was the utter callousness of the state authorisation committee (SAC) which provided the culprits the opportunity to exploit patients.

Savarkar and Sachin Salve, a former employee of SL Raheja Hospital, were arrested on October 1 by the Anti-Corruption Bureau for demanding Rs 1.5 lakh to approve the paperwork for the kidney transplant operation of Jamaluddin Khan. According to the DMER team report submitted on Wednesday, Savarkar had extorted money in several other cases. Dr Pravin Shingare, director, DMER, said the SAC did not follow the basic guidelines, which gave Savarkar a chance to demand hefty amounts of money to clear transplant papers.

“SAC members were not at all sincere in carrying out their duty, which gave an opportunity to Savarkar, who had all the rights to approve or reject a transplant. The committee did not even follow the basic rules, which would have minimized foul play in live organ transplants and kept changing their decision in every case,” said Dr Shingare.

Savarkar’s job was to prepare files, schedule meetings between applicants and the committee, and check the submitted documentation, said Dr Shingare. The SAC is responsible for investigating and authorising applications for organ transplants in cases where the donor and recipient are either distant relatives or unrelated. “We have dissolved the current state authorisation committee, although none of its members were directly involved in the scam. We are still to decide what action should be taken against them,” Dr Shingare said.