ISLAMABAD, July 26: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the government not to spare those involved in the trade of human organs, especially kidney, and allowed over a month’s time to finalise measures for promulgation of the Transplantation of Human Organ and Tissues Ordinance.

“There is no question of liking or disliking. The judicial order to promulgate the law should be followed strictly,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said while presiding over a bench that had taken up on suo motu an application of Mohammad Asghar.

The complainant, a resident of Bahawalpur district’s Yazman village, had complained that one of his kidneys had been forcibly removed in a Rawalpindi hospital by members of the ‘mafia’ involved in organ trade. He had requested the court to probe the matter and order arrest of the culprits.

The bench comprised the chief justice, Justice Rana Bhagwandas and Justice Ghulam Rabbani.

In compliance with earlier Supreme Court orders, both cabinet division secretary Syed Mashood Alam Rizvi and health secretary Khushnood Akhtar Lashari appeared in the court. They were required to explain the delay in promulgation of the ordinance despite orders of the court on July 2 this year.

Deputy Attorney-General Raja Mohammad Irshad represented the government.

The court directed the Ministry of Health to come up with some scheme to end the organ trade thriving unchecked right under their nose and if needed, the court could order law-enforcement agencies for their assistance.

“Why you people are not taking any interest when kidney centres with different names are mushrooming right under your nose, the CJ asked and suggested that the health ministry could conduct a survey of registered and unregistered kidney centres in the country or at least check licences of those institutions indulging in the immoral business.

“This concerns the fundamental rights of the people,” the chief justice observed, adding the trade could not be allowed to flourish in the absence of any law.

The court also ordered placing of the ordinance on priority at serial number one on the agenda to be taken up by the cabinet in its meeting scheduled for Aug 1 or 2.

At the outset, the cabinet secretary told the court that the Prime Minister Secretariat had been communicated on June 15 for including the law in the cabinet agenda for its meeting on June 27. The proposed law was at serial number seven then.

However, he said, the draft law was dropped from the agenda when the cabinet met on June 27, the reason for which he did not know.

The chief justice recalled that under Rule 16(2) of the Rules of Business, the prime minister could submit an important matter to the president directly by bypassing the cabinet for its promulgation through ordinance.

When the CJ reminded that under government rules, it was the cabinet division and not the Prime Minister Secretariat which finalised the agenda, the secretary said that in actual the practice was that the PM Secretariat approved the agenda.

“Should the rule prevail or the practice,” asked the chief justice and was told that the rules should prevail.

Subsequently, the cabinet secretary said, three cabinet meetings were also held on July 4, 10 and 18 which discussed the law and order situation in the NWFP, floods, Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa situation and the trade policy.

The secretary informed the court that he had spoken to the principle secretary to the prime minister to place the ordinance in the next cabinet meeting. He recalled that the cabinet on Feb 14 had approved the proposed law in principle but sent the draft to senior adviser Sharifuddin Pirzada and the law ministry to vet it.

“Now they have sent back the law with some policy changes,” he said.

The court adjourned the matter for the first week of September to allow the government to adopt measures for promulgation of the law.

Unscrupulous private clinics have sprung up also in Rawalpindi and Islamabad which use middlemen to find kidney donors for their patients, mostly Arabs from the Middle East. These middlemen entice farmers groaning under poverty or huge debts in small villages to selling their organs.

Reportedly, prospective recipients from Australia, Europe, Middle East and the United States pay over $40,000 to a doctor for a kidney, though the donor gets $1,000 to $2,000 only.

Rough estimates show that the annual turnover of the kidney business in Pakistan, centred around Rawalpindi and Lahore, is close to Rs980 million.