Fin irregularities: Court rejects discharge and bail petitions
Times of India | 5 February 2025
123 Kolkata: The Special CBI Court on Tuesday rejected the discharge petitions filed by the lawyers of the accused persons in connection with the alleged financial irregularities at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The court of Judge Sujit Kumar Jha held that "endeavours should be made to frame charges within seven days" following a Calcutta High Court order.
Lawyers of Sandip Ghosh, the prime accused in the case, and Biplab Singha, one of the vendors, filed a discharge petition with the court in the morning. Lawyers of Afsar Ali Khan and Ashish Pandey also filed discharge petitions. Ghosh's lawyer requested adequate time for the examination of documents.
Suman Hazra, another accused in the case, submitted that they were given 25,000 pages of documents, which did not have any indexation or pagination. His lawyer, Sabyasachi Banerjee, submitted that it was not possible for the defence to go through the volumes of documents in a short span of time. He alleged that the provision under section 230 of the BNS mandates that the accused persons were entitled to get such copies within 14 days from their date of production, but that provision was not complied with. He also moved a bail petition for Hazra.
Singha's lawyer, Indrajit Adhikari, filed two petitions in the court and alleged that the relied-upon documents needed to be replaced with "legible copies". He also sought another date for the examination of non-relied-upon documents.
The court, however, rejected the discharge and bail petitions.
"The court feels that a specific order by the Hon'ble High Court directing this court to make all endeavour to frame charges within seven days shall be complied with. So, at this stage, petitions filed on behalf of the accused persons for extension of time to file a petition for discharge, if any, are not entertainable," Judge Jha said in the order.
The court will take up the case for hearing again on Wednesday.