CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered the Authorisation Committee of the Tamil Nadu Health Department for organ transplantation to grant permission within three weeks to a college student suffering from renal issues to have kidney transplant.
Justice P T Asha passed the orders recently on a petition filed by B Shyam, of Ponneri in Tiruvallur district, pursuing third year in law graduation at a private university in Chennai.
The student has been suffering from kidney disease stage five. Since the doctors of a private hospital in Chennai advised him to go for kidney transplant, his parents searched for a suitable donor within the family but could not find matches. However, a distant relative R Selvam, of Tada in Andhra Pradesh, came forward on his own to donate a kidney.
They (Shyam and Selvam) both submitted an application to the authorisation committee on November 22, 2025, under form-II of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Rules, 2014, with required documents.
The committee, after perusing documents and interviewing the donor, rejected the application on January 9, 2026, on the grounds of ‘relationship not established’. Challenging this, Shyam and Selvam filed the writ petition seeking to quash the rejection order and direct grant of permission.
“In the case on hand, a perusal of the transcript of the statements made by the donor and his wife clearly brings out that they have come forward voluntarily to donate and in their own words which is said in unison, ‘That saving a life is important’. That apart the donor is not a total stranger to the recipient as the donor is the brother of the recipient’s maternal aunt’s husband,” the judge noted.
Disapproving the grounds for rejection, the judge stated the transcript clearly shows that the donor, his wife, the recipient and his father clearly described the relationship between the parties. The donor and his wife have also cogently given reasons for coming forward to donate the organ.
“There is no material produced on the side of the respondents to show that the donor has not come forward to donate his organ out of altruism (the fact of caring about the needs and happiness of other people more than your own). In the absence of the above, the rejection by the authorisation committee is arbitrary and baseless,” Justice Asha reasoned out.
Setting aside the rejection order, the judge ordered the committee to grant permission within three weeks in accordance with the law.