Pune doctor in Porsche crash row held for role in 2022 bogus kidney transplant racket

PUNE: Police on Wednesday night arrested Dr Ajay Taware, the suspended head of Sassoon General Hospital's forensic science department, in the 2022 kidney transplant case at Ruby Hall Clinic after securing his custody from Yerawada central jail earlier in the evening.Taware, who had been in jail since his arrest on May 27, 2024, as a co-accused in the blood sample swap case linked to the Porsche Taycan car crash on May 19 last year, was the head of the Regional Authorisation Committee (RAC) for organ transplant as well as the Sassoon Authority Committee and was the medical superintendent at the time when the transplant process took place and was completed at Ruby Hall Clinic.

RAC is responsible for scrutinising organ transplant papers related to the proposed donor and the receiver, sent by the hospital where the transplant is to be performed, and clearing them on establishing all credentials."We arrested Taware based on a five-member state health department inquiry committee's report of May 2022 that has indicted him and four others in RAC for misusing their position to aid kidney swap transplant based on bogus persons and forged documents," investigating officer ACP Ganesh Ingale told TOI. "The health department's then deputy director for Nashik region, Dr Raghunath Bhoye, headed the panel." Pune police commissioner Amitesh Kumar, when asked why it took so long (three years) for police to arrest Taware in this case, said, "We took a review of the case again, and post-consultation and study took the call to arrest him."

On Thursday afternoon, Ingale and his team produced Taware before judicial magistrate first class SR Badve, who ordered the doctor's remand in police custody till June 2."A total of nine swap kidney transplants were authorised and conducted during Taware's tenure as the RAC chief and police needed time to thoroughly investigate these matters," prosecutor Digambar Khopde told the court.The prosecutor submitted that Taware by virtue of being the head of RAC and the Sassoon Authority Committee had all the hospital bodies under his control and as a medical superintendent, he was well-versed with the administrative aspects and rules, processes and documentation work relating to organ transplant."It was RAC's responsibility to see that the papers of the donor and the receiver were genuine and that no financial transaction was involved behind the transplant proposal. Still, RAC gave its go-ahead to the organ transplant based on bogus persons and forged papers," the prosecutor said.Khopade submitted that police needed time to investigate who else were part of the process to clear the swap kidney transplant, whether money was exchanged in the process, how RAC failed to notice the difference of age between the wife of the organ receiver and the woman who posed as the wife of the receiver at the time of interview before RAC, and other aspects.(With inputs from Gitesh Shelke)