ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday regretted the “rising trend” of incidents involving the illegal removal and transplantation of human organs in Punjab.

“The control of the relevant authority in Punjab is negligible,” Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar lamented while heading a three-judge SC bench that had taken up an appeal by the Punjab government against the June 23, 2025, Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench order acquitting Dr Fawad Mumtaz, an assistant professor of plastic surgery at Lahore General Hospital, who was facing allegations of illegal kidney transplants.

During the hearing, Justice Kakar observed that even if a patient wanted to undergo an organ transplant in Quetta, he could easily acquire a kidney from Punjab, where the price of the vital organ ranged between Rs1.8 million and Rs2m.

The judge added that people in Quetta considered their organs so precious that they would not sell them even if offered billions in return.

Provincial govt challenges LHC’s acquittal of doctor accused of carrying out unlawful kidney grafts

The SC, however, postponed further proceedings until June 11, observing that the case appeared to be very serious, though complex, as incidents involving the removal of human organs had increased.

Justice Salahuddin Panhwar, also a member of the bench, regretted that doctors, hospital staff and related government institutions were all involved in this heinous offence.

‘Erroneous order’

Punjab Additional Prosecutor General Tariq Siddique, representing the State, pleaded before the SC to set aside the high court’s acquittal order, contending that it was based on “presumptions, surmises and conjecture” and therefore “erroneous” and “untenable” in the eyes of the law.

Tracing the history of the case, the State’s petition before the SC stated that Dr Fawad Mumtaz was a “habitual offender”, who had been involved in nine similar cases of illegal organ transplantation for which he was also dismissed from government service.

It argued that instead of setting the offender at liberty, he should be dealt with sternly to protect other innocent people from this heinous crime. It added that nine FIRs had been lodged against him at different police stations across Punjab for his involvement in illegal kidney transplantations.

Ultimately, he was dismissed from service on July 29, 2022 by the Punjab Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Department.

On March 27, 2023, the doctor was conducting a kidney transplant surgery in Taxila city when he was arrested during a police raid in which he was caught red-handed.

Subsequently, an FIR was registered under Sections 9, 10 and 11 of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissue Act, 2010, as well as the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act, 2018, at Taxila police station.

A Taxila magistrate convicted the doctor on Dec 17, 2024, sentencing him to seven years of rigorous imprisonment and imposing a fine of Rs1m.

The sentence was also upheld by a Taxila additional sessions judge. However, the LHC Rawalpindi Bench acquitted the doctor.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2026