Organ transplant bribery case: Accused sent to judicial custody till October 19

(Representational Image)

Two accused, arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Mumbai Police for allegedly seeking a bribe of Rs 80,000 for processing an organ transplant procedure, were sent to judicial custody till October 19, after the special court refused to grant further custody to the police.

Tushar Sawarkar, the social services superintendent of state-run JJ Hospital, and Sachin Salve, an organ transplant coordinator at SL Raheja Hospital, were produced before a special court on Saturday afternoon, with the ACB seeking a further seven-day custody of the duo. The ACB in its remand plea claimed that they had seized photocopies of proposals, put up before the state authorisation committee, seeking approval of organ transplant. It claimed that they had received information regarding the accused having sought bribes from others as well and were in the process of investigating them. The ACB also claimed that Sawarkar did not deliberately make any entries in the hospital’s register regarding proposals received from various hospitals. It added that they had wanted to probe whether this lack of entries was done at the behest of any senior authorities or to leave no trace of his alleged wrongdoings.

The court, however, said there were no new grounds to grant further police custody to the police.
Sawarkar and Salve were arrested on October 1 based on the complaint of a person, whose relative had made a proposal to undergo an organ transplant.