No: 3 Dated: Apr, 10 1997

THE JAMMU AND KASHMIR TRANSPLANTATION OF HUMAN ORGANS ACT, 1997

(ACT NO. III OF 1997)

    An Act to provide for the regulation of removal, storage and transplantation of human organs and tissues for therapeutic purposes and for the prevention of commercial dealings in human organs and tissues and for matter connected therewith or incidental thereto.

Be it enacted by the State Legislature in the Forty-eighth Year of the Republic of India as follows: -

CHAPTER I

Preliminary

1. Short title, extent and commencement. - (1) This Act may be called the Jammu and Kashmir Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1997.

(2) It extends to the whole of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

(3) It shall come into force on such date as the Government may, by notification in the Government Gazette, appoint.

2. Definitions. - In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:-

(a) "Advertisement" includes any form of advertising whether to public generally or to any section of the public or individually to selected persons;

(b) "Appropriate Authority" means the Appropriate Authority appointed under section 13;

(c) "Authorisation Committee" means the Committee constituted under clause (a) or clause (b) of sub-section (4) of section 9;

(d) "Brain-stem death" means the stage at which all functions of the brain-stem have permanently and irreversibly ceased and is so certified under sub-section (6) of section 3;

(e) "Deceased person" means a person in whom permanent disappearance of all evidence of life occurs, by reason of brain-stem death or in a cardio-pulmonary sense, at any time after live birth has taken place;

(f) "Donor" means any person, not less than eighteen years of age, who voluntarily authorizes the removal of any of his human organs for therapeutic purposes under sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) of section 3;

(g) "Government" means the Government of Jammu and Kashmir;

(h) "Hospital" includes a nursing home, clinic, medical centre, medical or teaching institution for therapeutic purposes and other like institution;

(ha) "Human Organ Retrieval Centre" means a hospital, -

(i) which has adequate facilities for treating seriously ill patients who can be potential donors of organs in the event of death ; and

(ii) which is registered under sub-section (1) of section 14 for retrieval of human organs ;

(hb) "minor" means a person who has not completed the age of eighteen years ;

(i) "Human Organ" means any part of a human body consisting of a structured arrangement of tissues which if wholly removed, cannot be replicated by the body;

(j) "Near relative" means spouse, son, daughter, father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, grandson or granddaughter ;

(k) "Notification" means a notification published in the Government Gazette;

(l) "Payment" means payment in money or money’s worth but does not include any payment for defraying or reimbursing,-

(i) the cost of removing, transporting or preserving the human organ to be supplied; or

(ii) any expenses or loss of earnings incurred by a person so far as reasonably and directly attributable to his supplying any human organ from his body;

(m) "Prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act;

(n) "Recipient" means a person into whom any human organ is or is proposed to be, transplanted;

(o) "Registered medical practitioner" means a medical practitioner who possesses any recognized medical qualification as defined in clause (h) of section 2 of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, and who is enrolled on a State Medical Register as defined in clause (k) of that section;

(p) "Therapeutic purposes" means systematic treatment of any disease or the measures to improve health according to any particular method or modality; and

(pa) "tissue" means a group of cells except blood performing a particular function in the human body ;

(pb) "Tissue Bank" means a facility registered under section 14A for carrying out any activity relating to the recovery, screening, testing, processing, storage and distribution of tissues, but does not include a Blood Bank;

(q) "ears" means the grafting of any human organ from any living person or deceased person to some other living person for therapeutic purposes and

(r) "transplant co-ordinator" means a person appointed by the hospital for co-ordinating all matters relating to removal or transplantation of human organs or tissues or both and for assisting the authority for removal of human organs in accordance with the provisions of section 3.