Quiz ex-principal, ex-OC in jail: Court no to CBI custodial interrogation plea
Times of India | 2 October 2024
Kolkata: Be more cautious, the Sealdah court told CBI on Monday, turning down the central agency’s plea for custodial interrogation of former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh and former Tala police station OC Abhijit Mandal. The magistrate, Arijit Mandal, asked CBI to question Sandip and Abhijit in the correctional home.
The additional chief judicial magistrate’s court, Sealdah, made the remark after noticing procedural irregularities in the CBI remand note.“The counsel of the accused has objected to the CBI procedure in filing the petition,” the court said. It also mentioned flaws had been found in the prayer. “The CBI... should be more cautious while filing petitions,” it said.
The court was unhappy with the CBI’s plea for a custodial interrogation even before trying to question the two in judicial custody.
Earlier in the day, the CBI had told the court they had received reports of the Tala PS CCTV footage and details of the two’s mobile phones.
The CBI filed a fresh petition for Sandip and Abhijit’s interrogation in the correctional home but did not pray for judicial custody. The defence counsel said the CBI needed to change the prayer from three days’ CBI custody to judicial custody. “They are speaking of a headache, but there is no mention of a head,” ex-Tala OC Abhijit’s lawyer Ayan Bhattacharya said. The CBI made changes again and prayed for 14 days’ judicial custody.
A CBI officer said they had the IPDR of the victim and arrested accused Sanjay Roy. Rejecting Sandip and Abhijit’s bail plea, the judge said the CBI needed to “go deep into the... allegation and beyond”. He sent the two to judicial custody till Oct 4 and asked them to be present virtually at Roy’s production.