Pune Porsche crash: In jail for over 10 months, accused teen's mother gets bail

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to Shivani Agarwal, who was arrested and in jail for more than 10 months for allegedly switching the blood samples of her 17-year-old son, who while driving his father’s Porsche car on May 19 last year in Pune had hit a motorcycle killing two IT professionals — Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashwini Koshta.
Shivani had engaged a person to swap blood samples of her son with her own at the Sassoon Hospital and paid Rs 3 lakh for the same.
After arrest, the teenager was enlarged on bail by the Juvenile Justice Board on the condition that he was to write a 300-word essay on road safety. This led to public outcry, revisiting of the case by police and sending the teenager to an observation home.
Appearing for Shivani, senior advocate Vikram Chaudhari told a bench of Justices B RGavai and A G Masih that the woman has already spent more than 10 months in prison and that section 437 of the criminal procedure code specifically provides for grant of bail to a woman accused even in nonbailable offences.
“As a parent she went overboard to protect her son. She has no criminal antecedents and has two children to support,” Chaudhari said. The bench accepted the arguments and said as chargesheet has been filed, she will be enlarged on bail.
The Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) on Monday suspended registrations of Sassoon General Hospital’s former head of Dr Ajay Taware and Dr Shrihari Halnor, who are facing trial in the case of swapping blood sample of the teenagerinvolved in the case.