New Delhi: The Supreme Court has sought a response from the Maharashtra government on pleas filed by an accused seeking bail in the Pune Porsche car accident case that claimed two lives in May 2024.
On May 19, 2024, a Porsche car, allegedly driven by a 17-year-old boy under the influence of alcohol, fatally knocked down two IT professionals in Pune’s Kalyani Nagar area.
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan issued notice to the state government and tagged the plea filed by accused Amar Santish Gaikwad against the Bombay High Court‘s December 16 order with other similar matters related to the case.
Gaikwad, represented by advocate Sana Raees Khan, submitted that the high court erred in its finding and denied him bail.
Khan submitted before the bench on Thursday that the sole allegation against the petitioner was that he acted as a middleman for the monetary transaction, which was made for tampering with the medical evidence or swapping of the blood sample of the juvenile at Sassoon Hospital by receiving the cash amount from the driver and handing it over to the doctor’s assistant.
The plea filed through advocate Pranay Shridhar Chitale further said that throughout the course of investigation, the prosecution levelled allegations regarding the tampering of evidence at the instance of the mother of the juvenile, who was driving the car but she has been granted bail and, hence, the principle of parity is squarely applicable to the petitioner whose role stands on a far better footing.
“The prosecution alleged that the petitioner, along with the co-accused, acted as middlemen between the parents of the juvenile and the doctors at Sassoon Hospital during the medical examination of the juvenile after the incident,” it said.
The plea said according to the alleged call detail record (CDR) produced by the prosecution, no calls were exchanged between the petitioner and the co-accused, which clearly demonstrates that the petitioner was never in contact with the alleged conspirator Vishal Agarwal or doctors at Sassoon Hospital.
“The allegations against the petitioner that he was in contact with the co-accused are completely false and baseless as the alleged CDR and the call location establish that the petitioner was never in contact with any of the co-accused and hence, documentary evidence absolutely falsifies the allegations,” the plea of Gaikwad, who was arrested by the police on June 4, 2024 in the case, said.
On January 7, the top court sought a response from the Maharashtra government on pleas filed by two other accused seeking bail in the case.
Aditya Avinash Sood (52) and Ashish Satish Mittal (37) were arrested on August 19 last year, as their blood samples were used for tests in connection with two minors who were in the car along with the 17-year-old main accused at the time of the accident.
The high court on December 16 last year rejected the bail pleas of eight accused, including Sood and Mittal, in the case.
The Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) had granted bail to the minor accused on lenient terms, sparking nationwide outrage. The bail conditions included writing a 300-word essay on road safety.
As bail to the accused juvenile triggered outrage, the Pune police approached the JJB to review its decision. The board then modified the order and sent the juvenile to an observation home. In June, the high court ordered the release of the juvenile.
While the juvenile involved in the case was released from an observation home, 10 accused, including his parents Vishal Agarwal and Shivani Agarwal, doctors Ajay Tawre and Shreehari Halnor, Sassoon Hospital’s staffer Atul Ghatkamble, Aditya Avinash Sood, Ashish Mittal and Arun Kumar Singh, and two middlemen, were sent to jail in the blood sample swapping case.
