Ghanashyam Sarda after his arrest. (Telegraph file picture)

Calcutta, Jan. 11: Kit scam accused Ghanashyam Sarda today walked out on bail more than two months after his arrest, but the breather came amid allegations of loopholes in a test report.

The bail, granted by a division bench of Calcutta High Court, threw up uneasy questions on the probe so far by Calcutta police’s detective department.

The police had arrested Ghanashyam, the brother of prime accused Govind, on November 25 from Calcutta airport as he was allegedly trying to flee the city. The brothers, who own Monozyme India Ltd, have been charged with supplying hundreds of fake HIV and hepatitis testing kits to different blood banks and hospitals in Bengal and other states.

Ghanashyam’s bail, according to police sources, has brightened the chances for Govind and fellow accused Anand Mallu, an employee of their company.

At the high court today, a bench of Justices D.P. Sengupta and P.K. Deb asked for the report on the kits prepared by the National Institute of Biologicals in Noida. After going through the report, which says the kits sent for tests were not fake, the judges ruled that Ghanashyam should be granted bail.

Defence lawyers Pradeep Ghosh and Sekhar Bose told the court that Ghanashyam has already spent several days in jail and should be released immediately.

“The investigating agency had sent the samples for testing and now that charges brought against him are proved baseless, he should be immediately released since he is not keeping well,” they said.

Additional advocate-general Nisith Nandan Adhikari tried to bring to the court’s notice that the report had some loopholes and was not final.

“The report by the National Institute of Biologicals is not in the right format and some clarifications are yet to reach the police,” Adhikari said. “The court should not allow his bail prayer at this stage.”

But the court was not convinced and granted the bail with a rider — Ghanashyam must meet the investigating officer twice a week and surrender his passport to him.

Outside the courtroom, the police alleged that the Noida institute’s report did not mention the details of the method of testing.

“There are also certain lacunae in the observations, including the name of the manufacturer. Besides, we possess internal communications between directors of Monozyme India, where they specifically state that in 2004 the company had with it expired kits worth Rs 2 crore and that by 2006 they had managed to sell off kits worth Rs 1 crore,” said Gyanwant Singh, the deputy commissioner of police (detective department).

“We’ll surely move the Supreme Court,” he added.