Roy meets lawyers in jail, may seek state legal aid
Times of India | 24 January 2025
Kolkata: With the CBI and state govt filing their pleas in Calcutta High Court seeking his death penalty, Sanjoy Roy, the RG Kar rape-and-murder convict, has also started consulting lawyers. On Wednesday and Thursday, he met a private lawyer in prison. However, Roy indicated to jail officers that he would take the help of the state legal aid in the Calcutta High Court.
A senior jail official said, "A lawyer appealed to meet Roy. Roy met him on Wednesday in prison during the visitation hours. He met the same lawyer, and possibly a senior advocate, again on Thursday."
A lawyer earlier appeared in Calcutta High Court seeking to represent Roy, but the HC asked the lawyer to get a formal authorisation from Roy. The HC is expected to take up both the state govt's and CBI's death penalty plea for hearing on Jan 27. However, jail sources indicated that Roy told them he wants to seek the help of the state legal aid, even making a formal plea to the courts in this regard. Roy reportedly said he cannot afford a lawyer on his own.
Roy's legal aid team, who argued in the Sealdah trial court, indicated he may file an appeal. They indicated that the Calcutta High Court will designate lawyers if Roy is unable to afford a counsel of his own. "Our role was restricted till the judgment day," said Sourav Bandyopadhyay, chief of the Legal Aid Defence Council Service (LADCS), South 24 Parganas.
"Any convict has a right to appeal, and it will be done in the due process. He is aggrieved and likely to move the higher court," said Senjuti Chakraborty, the lawyer who argued for Roy on the day of his judgment.
During the trial, Roy pleaded not guilty. He still keeps saying that in prison, after the Jan 21 judgement sentencing him to life behind bars.
As a life convict in Presidency jail, Roy made his first requests on Tuesday. He requested a notebook and a pen. He has not specified what he wants to write down. Now that he is not an undertrial, he has been allowed the items.
With his status shift from an undertrial to a life convict, Roy is also being allowed to step out of his locked cell for a couple of hours. Roy has been in Presidency jail since Aug 23 last year. Ever since, he has always been locked up in his cell, barring his court productions — either virtually or physically.