Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh High Court today (Dec 15, 2004) rejected a writ petition for allowing to harvest the organs of a patient suffering from incurable Muscular Dystrophy, on the grounds that the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1995 has no such provision.

"Organs can be harvested only from a brain dead patient and the law does not provide for transplanting organs from a person who is still alive," Chief Justice Devender Gupta and M Narayan Reddy said while dismissing the petitions filed by K Sujata, mother of K Venkatesh, who is on a life support system at a corporate hospital in Hyderabad.

The Division Bench also dismissed a similar plea based on the recommendations of a medical panel that organs of any person who is not brain-dead cannot be donated by the nearest relatives.

Sujata, after coming to know about the recommendations of the committee, filed the second writ petition seeking exemption from the Act as a special case and if necessary to amend the Act.

"Though we understand the anguish of the mother, the Act has no such provision and such a request cannot be conceded," the court observed.

Venkatesh, who is suffering from Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disorder, which has no cure, has expressed his last wish of donating his vital organs but the medical and legal opinion confirmed that organs can be donated only from a brain dead persons and the situation does not arise in the case of Muscular Dystrophy.