Kolkata: The Supreme Court today (August 20) criticised the Kolkata police over how it conducted its investigation into the rape and murder of the doctor in the RG Kar Medical College Hospital at Kolkata.
LiveLaw has reported on the lengthy hearing by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the matter which is already being heard by the Calcutta high court.
The bench which had the Central Bureau of Investigation’s status report today, sought to know why there was a delay in the registration of the FIR, highlighted inconsistencies in the timings in official entries, and also the fact that the crime scene was sealed only after several hours had passed since the discovery of the body.
“This is very surprising, post-mortem precedes registration of the UD [unnatural death] case!,” Justice Pardiwala said at one point.
The same judge also said that he has not come across such a handling of procedure by police “in [his] thirty years”.
During the hearing, a counsel brought up the often repeated claim that the post-mortem referred to 150 grams of semen. “Don’t use social media to make arguments, we have the actual autopsy report before us and we know what the 150 gm refers to…” the CJI shot back.
The CJI repeatedly highlighted the delay and asked who the principal was protecting.
The apex court asked protesting doctors to return to duty.
High court on Ghosh
The Calcutta high court had a day ago questioned the Bengal government on why a special investigating team (SIT) probe into former RG Kar Medical College and Hospital principal Dr Sandip Ghosh was only initiated on August 16, well after the rape and murder case.
A single bench of Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj heard, according to LiveLaw, a plea by former RG Kar Deputy Superintendent Akhtar Ali. Ali has accused Ghosh of serious wrongdoing, including mismanagement of dead bodies, misutilisation of funds, and selling biomedical waste on the open market, etc.
Ali said that Ghosh was powerful and had close connections with administration.
