International kidney racket busted, 3 held
Hyderabad, Apr 1: An international kidney racket was busted with the arrest of three people who allegedly lured a 33-year-old man from Hyderabad and got his kidney removed in Turkey after promising to pay Rs 20 lakh, police said Monday.
Amrish Prathap, kingpin of the crime, and his two accomplices, Sandeep Kumar alias Rohan Malik and a 37-year-old woman, were arrested from Delhi and produced before a court there and brought to Hyderabad on a transit remand, Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh M Bhagwat told reporters here.
To identify the donors, the accused engaged agents and brokers and used social media to lure them with big money and simultaneously searched for rich patients who could spend around Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore for kidney transplantation, the Commissioner said.
Investigations revealed that Amrish Prathap sent patients and donors to Sri Lanka, Egypt and Turkey and had succeeded in conducting around 40 transplantations, he said.
The victim, in a complaint lodged with police in February 2019, said that in July 2018 he had seen a post on Facebook by Rohan Malik under the caption 'Kidney needed in India'.
The victim contacted Malik, who told him that they would pay him a huge sum of money if he sold his kidney, besides providing expenses for transportation, accommodation, documentation and medical examinations.
To tide over his financial situation, he accepted the offer of Malik who promised to pay him Rs 20 lakh and he went to Delhi in July 2018.
He met the accused and attended all the required medical examinations including cross-match test with the patient, police said.
In August 2018, Malik informed the victim about his travel to Turkey for surgery and removal of the complainant's kidney, Bhagwat said.
Before travelling, Malik and one Rithika Singh allegedly prepared forged documents for conducting the kidney transplantation surgery at a hospital in Izmir city and sent him (victim) along with the patient and his family, he said.
However, after the surgery the accused refused to pay him the promised money, which led to a clash there, following which they threatened him, saying if he disclosed the matter, they would kill him, Bhagawat said.
The complainant, having no other option on foreign soil, pleaded with them, collected his passport and returned to India, the Commissioner said.
Following his complaint, a case was registered under relevant sections of the IPC, the Transplantation of Human Organs Act and the IT Act.
Police found Amrish Prathap had involved many doctors, diagnostic centres, government officials, agents and brokers in the racket, he said.
A special police team kept surveillance over the activities of the accused and a Look Out Circular was issued against Prathap.
On March 28 midnight, Prathap landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi from Singapore and Immigration authorities detained him.
They informed Rachakonda police, who based on his information, arrested two of his accomplices in Delhi, the commissioner added.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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