After Pune Porsche case, THIS doctor is now accused in kidney transplant racket

Pune, May 29 (PTI) Police on Thursday arrested Dr Ajay Taware, former medical superintendent of the Sassoon General Hospital and then head of the Regional Authorization Committee that approves organ transplants, in an alleged kidney transplant racket case, officials said.

Taware has been lodged at the Yerwada Central Jail here following his arrest last year for allegedly tampering with the blood samples of the 17-year-old boy accused of driving a Porsche car allegedly in an inebriated condition in May 2024. Two IT professionals were killed after their motorcycle was hit by the speeding Porsche car.

Being the medical superintendent of the Sassoon General Hospital in Pune, Taware was also the head of the Regional Authorization Committee which approved kidney transplants in 2022.

The Pune police in May 2022 registered a case against 15 persons, including the managing trustee of the Ruby Hall Clinic hospital and some of its employees, in connection with alleged malpractices related to a kidney transplant procedure.

Sarika Sutar, a resident of Kolhapur who had been allegedly promised ₹15 lakh, fraudulently posed as the wife of Amit Salunke who needed a transplant, and donated her kidney in March 2022 to a young woman patient. In turn, the young woman's mother donated her kidney to Salunke.

Such a swap involving two patients and their relatives is carried out when the patients cannot receive a kidney from their own kin because of a blood group mismatch or other complications.

On March 29, 2022, four days after undergoing the transplant surgery at Ruby Hall Clinic, Sutar revealed her real identity after she had a dispute over money.

The private hospital alerted the police, who reported the incident to the health department of the Maharashtra government. The health department subsequently suspended Ruby Hall Clinic's registration for organ transplantation.

Police also arrested two middlemen -- Abhijit Gatne and Ravindra Rodge -- who had allegedly forged documents to present Sarika Sutar as 'Sujata Salunke', wife of Amit Salunke.

According to the police, Dr Taware, as head of the Regional Authorization Committee, did not carry out proper scrutiny of the transplant proposal.

"Dr Taware's role came up after a committee formed by the state government indicted him. On Wednesday, we took his custody on a production warrant from the court, and arrested him afresh in the kidney racket case. He was produced before a court which remanded him in police custody till June 2," said a police officer from the Pune crime branch.

While seeking his police custody for seven days, the prosecution told the court that Dr Taware misused his position and approved the transplant on the basis of forged documents and a fraudulent donor.

Police needed to probe suspected financial transactions, it said.

Sarika Sutar, who was posing as Salunke's wife, could not give satisfactory answers during an interview conducted by the Regional Authorization Committee headed by Dr Taware, yet the committee approved the transplant, the prosecution said.

"A total of nine kidney transplant swaps took place during Dr Taware's tenure and police need to probe these swaps," it said.

So far, police have named 17 people in the case, including Dr Taware and a chargesheet has been filed against seven persons.