High Court acquits 5 docs sentenced to jail in Amritsar kidney case
Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted five doctors who were convicted and sentenced to five-year rigorous imprisonment by the Amritsar Additional Sessions Judge in a kidney transplant case.
The judgment by Justice Fateh Deep Singh came on petitions by Dr SPS Grover and the other accused.
They had moved the High Court following their conviction on November 2, 2013, for cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and other offences under the IPC and the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994.
The complainant died in 2004 after which his father appeared as a prosecution witness. He alleged the doctors had removed his son’s kidney and that he was kept in illegal confinement.
The accused’s lawyers submitted that the complainant never deposed as a prosecution witness.
In the absence of his deposition, “the trial court erred” in placing reliance on the statements by the complainant to the investigating agency, as also upon his statement recorded before a magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC.
It was contended that an earlier statement by the witness could only be used for the purpose of contradicting or corroborating the testimony of the witness. Neither the FIR, nor any statement recorded under Section 164 would constitute a substantive piece of evidence.
-PTC News
