Supreme Court issues mandamus allowing father-in-law to donate kidney

The Supreme Court has issued a mandamus allowing donation of kidneys by the father-in-law to the daughter-in-law.

Before this, there was no such provision in the country's law related to human organ transplants.

The Sahid Dharma Bhakta Human Organ Transplant Centre, Bhaktapur had, three weeks back, suspended in the last hour the process for kidney transplantation on Geeta Bhandari of Bhadrapur Municipality-10, Jhapa after both her kidneys had failed, citing lack of legal provisions allowing the father-in-law (spouse's younger uncle) to donate a kidney to his daughter-in-law (nephew's spouse).

Geeta's husband's younger uncle, Netra Prasad Bhandari, had consented to donate his kidney to her. The process for kidney transplantation was forwarded following this. The final medical test report of Netra Prasad also mentioned that his kidney was compatible with the transplantation. However, the Centre had refused to carry out the kidney transplantation, citing legal obstacles.

Geeta had filed a writ petition asking for the provisions allowing her husband's uncle to donate his kidney to her after she was denied this kidney process by the Centre.

The apex court on Sunday delivered a mandamus in this regard almost one month after the filing of the petition. A joint bench of justices Deepak Kumar Karki and Kumar Chundal ruled in the case.

With this, now Netra Prasad can donate his kidney to Geeta setting a precedent while nullifying the Centre’s earlier decision in the case, said advocate Tikaram Bhattarai, who pleaded the case on behalf of Geeta.