Pune Porsche car crash: Supreme Court grants bail to another ‘middleman’ accused of swapping blood samples

The fatal accident took place after the minor driver and his friends had celebrated their Class 12 exam results at a pub in Pune city.
A police probe revealed that when the minor driver, the son of a prominent realtor from Pune, was taken to the government-run Sassoon Hospital after the accident for a medical examination, his blood sample was allegedly replaced with his mother’s.

The police initially arrested the minor’s mother, his father, Dr Ajay Aniruddha Taware, 50, former head of the Forensic Medicine Department of Sassoon Hospital, Dr Shrihari Bhimrao Halnor, 37, the casualty medical officer at the time and Atul Namdev Ghatkamble, 32, a morgue staff.

Makandar and Gaikwad were then arrested for allegedly acting as middlemen. Further investigation confirmed that blood samples of the two friends of the minor driver, present with him in the Porsche, were also swapped at Sassoon Hospital. The police then arrested the fathers of both friends, who were also minors, and a private person linked to them, for their alleged role in blood swapping.

The police filed a chargesheet against all 10 accused and submitted a final report against the minor driver to the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB).

Earlier this month, the apex court granted bail to three accused: Gaikwad, the father of a minor boy and a private person linked to another minor, who was in the Porsche car when the accident happened.