‘Suspect’s wife to stand trial’

MUMBAI: Kidney racketeer Santosh Rameshwar Raut aka Amit Kumar’s wife Sujata will have to stand trial in a case of human organs’ sale in 1995, ruled judge SN Sardesai on Tuesday. Sardesai did not accept Sujata’s plea that she was not involved in the kidney racket, had separated from her husband ten years before the incident and was a doctor at the Kalazot Hospital, Colaba.

The judge further ruled that her co-accused Mukhtar Ansari be discharged from the case as the police had garnered no evidence against him. Ansari was originally arrested on the strength of another accused, Dr Yogesh Kothari’s, statement that Ansari was a tout for kidney donors.

Criminal expert Anand Jondhale explained that unless the co-accused statement is a legally valid confession it cannot be used against the accused. Therefore, if no witness has spoken of Ansari there would be no legally valid evidence against him.

The judge gave prosecutor Meena Vaiude permission to include Ansari as an accused, once again, if the police later find any evidence against him. Both Sujata and Ansari had been discharged from the case without a trial by the 9th court at Bandra in 2006 as ‘there was not an iota of evidence against them’. The state had approached judge Sardesai to review that order.

In 1995, Santosh Raut, the alleged mastermind, and eleven others including Sujata and Ansari were charged for illegally dealing in human organs at the Kaushalya Nursing Home at Khar.