PUNE: The parents of the 17-year-old driver in the May 19 Porsche Taycan crash case were liable to be tried for culpable homicide as they had the knowledge about the consequences of giving the car to their minor son, who did not have a driving licence and was not trained to drive the car that also had no registration number plate, Pune police said in a chargesheet filed with a city court on Friday.
On June 18, the police had submitted a ‘final report’ to the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) against the underage driver and are awaiting the JJB’s final order on their plea that seeks the minor be tried as an adult. The teenager, who was detained in an observation home from May 23 to June 25, was released following a Bombay high court order and is now in custody of his aunt.
On Friday, the police filed their first chargesheet, running into 900 pages, in the court of special judge U M Mudholkar against seven people: the teenager’s father (a city-based builder), mother, two doctors — Ajay Taware and Shrihari Halnor — and mortuary staffer Atul Ghatkamble of Sassoon General Hospital (all three now suspended), and two middlemen — Ashfaque Mankandar and Amar Gaikwad — who aided the builder’s contact with Taware and handed over an alleged Rs3 lakh bribe money to Ghatkamble to manipulate the teenager’s blood alcohol test.
Police have recovered Rs2.5 lakh of this money from Halnor and Rs50,000 from Ghatkamble.