T.N. illegal kidney sale racket: Madras High Court seeks order cancelling private hospital’s licence

The Madras High Court on Monday (August 25, 2025) directed the Tamil Nadu Health and Family Welfare Department to produce a copy of an order passed by the latter, cancelling the renal transplantation licence of Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Medical College and Hospital in Perambalur due to complaints of an illegal kidney sale racket.

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh directed Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran to produce the cancellation order by Thursday (August 28) as the private medical college and hospital had approached the court challenging only a press release issued by the State government on August 10.

Pointing out that the press communique only states the government had decided to cancel the licence on the basis of a report submitted by a committee constituted by the Health Department to inquire into the illegal kidney sale racket, the judge wanted to know whether any cancellation order was passed subsequently.

The AAG told the court an order was, in fact, passed after the issuance of the press communique, and agreed to produce it before the court on Thursday. The inquiry committee had recommended the cancellation of the licences issued to the petitioner hospital as well as that of Cethar Hospital in Tiruchi.

It had also recommended criminal action against the brokers involved in the racket. The committee, after a thorough inquiry, found fake documents having been submitted for the purpose of illegal kidney transplantation and recommended action against a host of individuals involved in the process.

Recommending the reconstitution of district- and State-level organ transplantation authorisation committees, the inquiry committee had said, the officials of these committees had submitted the fake documents to the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DME&R) authorisation committee.

Apart from the initiation of action against the officials, the inquiry committee had recommended the formulation of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for transplants involving live donors and said, the organ recipients must be interviewed online if they were unable to appear in person before the district-level committees.

Further, suggesting the printing of forms pertaining to organ transplantation in both Tamil and English for the easy understanding of individuals involved in the process, the inquiry committee had said, the documents should be preserved for at least 10 years, considering them to be related to medico-legal cases.