The Calcutta High Court asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday to clearly spell out whether the 31-year-old trainee doctor killed at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9 last year was raped by a single person or gang-raped.
The Court was hearing a plea filed by the parents of the deceased doctor, seeking a fresh investigation into the incident. The parents sought a probe into the larger conspiracy around the rape of the victim and subsequent cover-up by the college authorities.
The High Court, which has also asked the agency if there was a conspiracy behind the crime, also ordered CBI to produce the case diary related to its investigation on the next date of hearing on March 28.
Justice Ghosh asked CBI if it ever found reasons to believe that the crime was committed by more than one person and not just just Sanjoy Roy, a former Kolkata police civic volunteer who was convicted for her rape and murder in January and handed down a life term by the Sealdah trial court.
Justice Ghosh also directed the CBI to explain the suspected conspiracy to cover up the crime.
“You must tell me if at any time you took into consideration an investigation under section 70 of BNS (gang rape)? The accused was convicted. What was the nature of your charge? Was it a sole accused or a gang rape? You must make it clear,” justice Ghosh told deputy solicitor general Rajdeep Majumder who appeared for CBI.
The High Court had taken the case from the Kolkata Police which had arrested Sanjoy Roy, and handed it over to the CBI on August 13, days after protests across the country
On September 14, CBI arrested Sandip Ghosh, the then principal of the medical college and Abhijit Mondal, the then officer-in-charge of Tala police station on charges of tampering with the evidence.
But the CBI did not file a charge sheet against them in connection with the doctor’s murder. A charge sheet was, however, filed against Ghosh in November last year accusing him of corruption at the hospital.
Justice Ghosh said: “If you ever believed more than one person was involved, who were the people in your mind? You must tell the court. Was it gang rape or destruction of evidence where multiple people were involved?”
Lawyer Sudipta Moitra, who represented the petitioners, told the court that there is no evidence that the CBI formed a special investigation team (SIT) for the case.
Lawyer and Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee, who appeared for the State Government, told the court that the Government did not have any objection to further investigation but asked if there was any legal provision for it since the Sealdah court proceedings ended with Roy’s conviction after a 57-day in-camera trial.
The victim’s parents told reporters that the CBI did not make any attempts to expose the conspiracy behind the crime.
“My daughter was constantly protesting against corruption at the hospital. She used to say many patients died because of spurious medicines. The conspirators wanted to silence her. We told this to the CBI officials several times but they did not pay heed,” the victim’s mother said outside the High Court.
While the hearing was on, a few hundred doctors and nurses marched to the CBI office at the Salt Lake CGO Complex alleging that the agency did not carry out a thorough investigation.
The victim’s parents recently met the CBI director in Delhi and sought a fresh investigation and also moved the Supreme Court which directed the High Court to hear the petition.
In January this year, the trial court convicted and sentenced the prime accused, Sanjay Roy on charges of rape and murder after an in-camera trial that lasted 57 days.
Roy, a civic volunteer with the city police, was arrested by the Kolkata Police on August 10, 2024 a day after the incident. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In February this year, the High Court dismissed the appeal filed by the State government seeking the death penalty for Roy. A bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashid refused to grant permission to the State to file such an appeal since it was the CBI which had probed the matter and conducted the prosecution.
It thus allowed the CBI to file an appeal for the same punishment.
