Porsche crash: Cops get Maha govt's nod to prosecute 3 hospital staffers

The Maharashtra government has permitted the Pune police to prosecute Sassoon Hospital staffers Dr Ajay Taware, Dr Shreehari Halnor and Atul Ghatkamble in the Porsche car crash case in Pune, a local court was informed.

Two IT professionals were killed after the two-wheeler they were riding on was hit by a Porsche car, allegedly driven by a drunk 17-year-old boy, in the early hours of May 19 in the city’s Kalyani Nagar area.

Taware, Halnor and Ghatkamble are accused of being involved in the swapping of the minor’s blood samples to nullify alcohol tests.

“We today (on Thursday) submitted to the court that police have received the state government’s sanction to prosecute Taware, Halnor and Ghatkamble in the case. Such sanction to prosecute or frame charges against government employees is mandatory,” special public prosecutor advocate Shishir Hiray said.

Taware, Halnor, Ghatkamble, the juvenile’s parents and two middlemen are in jail in the case.

On Wednesday, 23 October, the Bombay High Court denied anticipatory bail to the father of the minor driver's friend in a case pertaining to the Porsche car accident in Pune city that claimed two lives in May.

Justice Manish Pitale noted in his order that prima facie ingredients of an offence were made out against the applicant.

The applicant's minor son was allegedly sitting in the rear seat of the car when the accident took place. Along with the teenage driver, he too was allegedly drunk.

The high-end car knocked down two motorbike-borne IT professionals, one of them a woman, in Pune's Kalyani Nagar area in the wee hours of May 19, killing both.