LAHORE, Jan 16: Justice Mohammad Muzammil Khan of the Lahore High Court on Monday called for the attorney-general to depose if the federal government was contemplating a legislation to make the sale and purchase of human limbs and organs a cognizable offence.

The court had sought the statement of the AG with a direction to Deputy Attorney-General Dr Danishwar Malik that he should ascertain the availability of the AG for his submission on an issue of national importance.

The call to the AG was issued after the National Assembly speaker informed the court that the assembly secretariat had received no bill from the federal government to legislate a curb on the offence of the sale and purchase of kidneys and other human organs. The speaker also stated in his reply that it was the government and not the assembly which was empowered to initiate a legislation and the national legislature or its secretariat had no powers to enact a law.

The court was proceeding in a writ petition filed by advocate M D Tahir who sought from the federal and the Punjab governments to enact laws to make the sale and purchase of human organs a cognizable offence.

Further proceedings in the petition were adjourned to a date when the AG would be available to address the court in the matter. The DAG had earlier submitted the federal ministry of health was responsible for undertaking legislative work on the subject. He also submitted that the interior ministry was yet to file a reply in the writ petition.

The court had issued notices to the federal and the Punjab governments, besides the provincial inspector-general of police, to explain if they were considering a legislation to prevent the inhuman business.

The writ petition, which was amended during the course of the proceedings, sought a court injunction against the federal and the provincial governments and those involved in the trade.

Citing an incident occurring in Sultanpur Mela village of Sargodha district where about 400 people were made to sell their kidneys to pay off debt on their lands in year 2000, the lawyer-petitioner submitted that the abominable business was being run by a ‘mafia’ of doctors and their agents. He submitted that they were purchasing kidneys and some other human parts from poor people and selling them at high prices to wealthy patients from within the country and abroad.

He submitted that the inhuman trade had of late become a thriving business where a kidney was purchazed for Rs50,000 and sold for one million rupees or more. He submitted that many surgeons in Lahore hospitals and elsewhere were performing kidney extraction and transplanting these with impunity.

He submitted that such surgeons had no fear because there was no law to declare the inhuman business an offence. He submitted that India had enacted such a law and it provided for heavy penalties on the sale and purchase of human organs.

Upon a direction, the Bhalwal police submitted in the Lahore High Court that their investigation verified the Sargodh district incident cited by the petitioner. Yet, they could neither proceed against the sellers nor the purchasers because the act was not restrained by any law.

Mr Tahir stated that the inhuman business was now spreading in other districts of the Punjab. He submitted that Hafizabad was the most conspicuous of the districts where somebody in every third household was selling kidneys. He also mentioned such cases in Vehari, Sheikhupura and Narowal.