This story is from October 13, 2015

Salman Khan hit-and-run case: Judge expresses concern over blood samples

This is the scenario in Mumbai said Justice A R Joshi of the Bombay high court getting subtly sarcastic when Salman Khan's counsel Amit Desai pointed out that the actor was sent to JJ from Bhabha hospital for his blood test while blood was withdrawn from the dead victim at the civic hospital in Bandra.
Salman Khan hit-and-run case: Judge expresses concern over blood samples
'This is the scenario in Mumbai,' said Justice A R Joshi of the Bombay high court getting subtly sarcastic when Salman Khan's counsel Amit Desai pointed out that the actor was sent to JJ from Bhabha hospital for his blood test while blood was withdrawn from the dead victim at the civic hospital in Bandra.
READ: Salman Khan's lawyer: No law to take blood test in accident cases
"The Bhabha hospital could take out blood from a dead man but not from a live man," said the judge who is presiding over the appeal filed by Khan against his conviction and five-year jail term, for culpable homicide not amounting to murder for the death of one man and injuring four others when his car rammed into a Bandra laundry in September 2002.

The judge expressed concern over the fact that the civic-run Bhabha Hospital did not have the facility to draw blood. "We had a public interest petition before this court regarding ambulances and the delay in their reaching accident victims and the issue importance of "golden hour" and ambulances to help out road accident victims.
Desai is continuing with his evidence bashing arguments surrounded by a team of lawyers including solicitor Anand Desai, Shrikant Shivade who was the actor's lawyer in the trial court and the public prosecutor Purnima Kantharia.
On Monday he brought to light a major mismatch in the blood drawing, collection and examination process by pointing out that the amount of blood drawn at the government-run Sir JJ Hospital at Byculla does not match with what was receieved at the Forensic Science Laboratory at Kalina.

"Blood extracted by PW-20 (Dr Shashikant Janardan Pawar, medical officer at JJ Hospital) was 6 ml, stored in two vials of 3 ml each, while when PW-18 (Dattatray Khobrajirao Bhalshankar, chemical analyser at FSL-Kalina) found 4 ml of blood an only one vial," "It appears that what PW-18 has received is a completely different sample," he said.
"The appealant have been convicted with this kind of evidence," Desai said, pointing out that this is an addition to the chain of discrepancies," he said, adding that the CA's report does not speak about the percentage of alcohol but content of alcohol.
Speaking from portions of the paper book, he said that evidence in one place says - "one sealed vial intact, as per copy sent" while in another place it says "no copy sent". "This is confusing....so whether it is seal intact as per copy sent or no copy sent....an ambiguity has been created," Desai said.
Desai's point was that barring the lab test there was no other evidence to point to the actor having had alcohol. The test said he had .62 percent blood alcohol level. It appears police just wanted the lab to say that.
He said the "blood story" is curious - and it starts from the Bhabha Hospital, which does not have the facility to draw blood to the JJ Hospital where oxalate, which is an anti-coagulant has been shown as a preservative and a ward boy drew the blood to the Kalina lab, which received a different quantity of blood.
Desai also attached the expert witness who he said did not even have notes of his from the lab test, a fact that even the judge mentioned and found curious.
"There are discrepancies in crucial factual issues," he pointed. The lawyer also said that the trial court erred in not observing that even in the Alister Periera case registered by Khar police station, blood was drawn at the Bhabha Hospital. "But timelines are different."
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About the Author
Swati Deshpande

Swati Deshpande is Senior editor at The Times of India, Mumbai, where she has been covering courts for over a decade. She is passionate about law and works towards enlightening people about their statutory, legal and fundamental rights. She makes it her job to decipher for the public the truth, be it in an intricate civil dispute or in a gruesome criminal case.

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