A retired customs commissioner has raised serious allegations against Dr. Ajay Taware, who was recently arrested in connection with a fatal Porsche crash in Pune. The commissioner claims that Dr. Taware, the head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Sassoon General Hospital, manipulated the gender test report of the commissioner’s daughter-in-law amid a marital dispute five years ago.
The retired official alleged that Dr. Taware played a crucial role in altering the gender test report of his estranged daughter-in-law. The customs official’s son married in 2013, but soon faced issues as his wife reportedly refused to engage in sexual relations. Upon investigating her medical history and birth certificate in Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), the official discovered she was born male in 1984. However, after ten years, the municipal corporation issued a new birth certificate listing her gender as female.
The daughter-in-law subsequently filed a dowry harassment case against the family, which was taken to a court in Andheri, Mumbai. In 2018, the court ordered a gender test for the woman, which was conducted at Sassoon Hospital in Pune. A medical panel, including Dr. Taware, issued a report in February 2019 stating she was “phenotypically and genotypically female.” The retired commissioner believes this report was manipulated and should have been conducted in Aurangabad, not Pune. He filed complaints with the Medical Council of India and the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra, but no action was taken.
Dr. Ajay Taware, along with two others, was arrested earlier this week for allegedly tampering with blood samples of a minor accused in a fatal Porsche crash in Pune’s Kalyani Nagar. The minor, driving the Porsche, crashed into a motorbike, killing two people. Dr. Taware is accused of swapping the blood samples to influence the investigation.
In 2022, Dr. Taware was involved in another controversy when the Maharashtra government suspended the regional organ transplant authorization committee in Pune, of which he was a member. This suspension followed the exposure of a kidney transplant approval racket.
Dr. Taware is currently in police custody in Pune. The retired customs commissioner has expressed his intent to provide evidence against Dr. Taware if the Porsche crash case is transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The retired commissioner highlighted the gravity of the situation, stating, “If the car crash case gets transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, I will submit all the evidence against Dr. Taware and others.” He is pushing for a thorough investigation into Dr. Taware’s activities, which have allegedly compromised the integrity of medical reports and legal processes.
These developments have put a spotlight on the ethical and legal standards within medical and forensic practices, particularly concerning the manipulation of critical medical reports and the implications for justice and accountability.
