RG Kar rape and murder case: Calcutta HC rejects govt plea for death penalty for Sanjay Roy
Telegraph | 10 February 2025
The high court on Friday rejected the Bengal government’s appeal seeking capital punishment for Sanjay Roy for the rape and murder of a young doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and accepted the CBI’s prayer stating that the state’s appeal was not maintainable.
Both the Bengal government and the CBI made similar prayers challenging Roy’s sentence awarded by the additional district and sessions court, Sealdah, and demanded the death penalty.
In a 27-page order, the division bench of justices Debangshu Basak and Shabbar Rashidi said: “An appeal has been filed at the behest of Government of West Bengal under Section 418 (1) of Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) challenging the adequacy of the sentence passed against the convict seeking enhancement of punishment awarded to the convict.
“Another appeal being….filed at the behest of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under Section 418 (2) of Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, also seeking an order for enhancement of the punishment imposed upon the convict.”
The division bench will start hearing the CBI’s petition challenging the lower court’s sentence from the next date, which was not announced on Friday.
The state has the liberty to challenge the order passed by the division bench. No confirmation on whether the government will move against the order was available on Friday.
The court said two issues had to be considered.
“One is whether the state government is competent to direct presentation of an appeal against inadequacy of sentence where the investigation of the case has been conducted by a central agency like Central Bureau of Investigation.... The other is whether the appeal filed by the CBI through the special public prosecutor is valid or not,” the court said.
The order said there was no ambiguity about whether the appeal filed by the CBI through the special public prosecutor was valid.
“We have already noted that the learned advocate who has presented the appeal on behalf of CBI was duly appointed to conduct the appeal on behalf of CBI as a Special Public Prosecutor in terms of sub-section (8) of Section 18 of BNSS which is akin to Section 24 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Therefore, we find no infirmity in the appointment of the learned advocate, who has presented the appeal.”
Earlier in January, the court had sought the opinion of the parents of the slain RG Kar doctor. The parents’ lawyer said they were not in favour of demanding the death penalty for Roy. They wanted all the “other accused” to be brought under this case.
The court had reserved the order for several days.
On Friday, it ordered: “We are of the view that since the investigation of the case was conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation, a central agency, in pursuance of an order passed by this court, the central government is the appropriate authority to issue directions for presentation of an appeal against inadequate sentence. In view of the words ‘Save as otherwise provided in sub-section (2)’, in the opening paragraph of Section 418 of BNSS, the state government cannot issue such directions so long as the central government or the CBI is willing to do so.”