New Delhi: A retired Bombay High Court judge and others have filed a PIL in the Supreme Court, urging it to allow the Nirbhaya death row convicts the option to donate their organs after their execution pm March 5.
The petitioners are Bombay High Court judge Michel F Saldanha, Advocate Dilraj Rohit Sequira and the President of Mangalore chapter of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).
In their plea, the petitioners pointed out that the issue of there being an acute shortage of vital organs for donation research can be addressed to some extent if death row convicts are given the option to donate their organs and if a procedure is formulated for the retrieval of such organs after their execution.
Currently, there is no concrete policy surrounding organ donation in India, other than it being voluntary.
The petitioners also argued that providing death row convicts with the option to donate their organs will give them a chance to make a positive contribution to society.
The PIL reads, “… the prisoners who have been convicted for death penalty, ought to be granted an opportunity for their organs to be donated after their execution and for their bodies to be used for medical research purposes as desirable by medical and educational institutions. Such an option for death convicts would render them to create a positive impact even after their death, apart from helping a person in need of a vital organ via transplantation.”
The petitioners also raised issues such as allowing death row convicts to make living donations if they are healthy and willing, allowing dead prisoners to donate regardless of cause of death, proper approaches with safeguards to protect the rights of all persons involved and creation of a panel to decide the authenticity of donations made by death penalty convicts.
The Supreme Court has been asked to direct the government to amend the Prison Rules to make provisions for a procedure to be followed for organ donations after the execution of death row convicts.
