High court's gang-rape query to CBI; judge seeks status report in RG Kar brutality
Telegraph | 26 March 2025
The high court on Monday told the CBI to clarify if the agency had at any point in its probe into the RG Kar rape and murder considered the possibility of gang rape.
The bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh also sought clarity from the CBI on whether it was probing the charges of rape and murder even after the submission of the chargesheet or restricting the investigation only to the possible destruction of evidence and the involvement of multiple people in it.
The parents of the young doctor found dead at RG Kar on August 9, 2024, moved a petition seeking further investigation on Monday.
The State told the court it had no objection to the family’s prayer “if the law permits it”.
The court told the CBI to submit the case diary and a report on March 28 (Friday) to understand the progress of the probe before passing an order.
The court also sought several clarifications from the CBI counsel.
“You must tell me whether at any time you (the CBI) took into consideration investigating under Section 70 of the BNS (gang rape)?” Justice Ghosh asked CBI lawyer Rajdeep Majumdar.
The judge said: “The accused has been convicted in this case. What was the language of the charge before the trial court? Is it one offence committed by an accused or is it a case of gang rape?”
The third question Justice Ghosh asked was if the CBI had at any point considered this to be gang rape and, if so, who it thought the suspects were.
The judge sought a status report of what the CBI has been doing since submitting the chargesheet. “The chargesheet has been submitted long ago. There has not been a supplementary chargesheet. What are you doing? Whether you are probing gang rape or simply restricting (the investigation) to destruction of evidence,” he asked.
The CBI submitted a chargesheet in October 2024 mentioning only one accused in the case. In the chargesheet, the agency said the role of then RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh and the then officer-in-charge of Tala police station, Abhijit Mandal, was being probed for allegations of a “larger conspiracy” and “destruction of evidence”.
Although the CBI mentioned the possibility of a supplementary chargesheet, it is yet to be filed.
Sanjay Roy is formally the lone accused who was tried and found guilty of the crime.
The 31-year-old postgraduate trainee was found dead in the seminar hall on the third floor of the emergency building of the RG Kar hospital.
Earlier on Monday, moving the case on behalf of the slain doctor’s parents, advocate Sudipta Moitra demanded a further probe. He claimed that not only Roy but several others were also involved and the doctor had been gang-raped.
“We have learned that several nurses and security guards are being questioned now. This ought to have been done much earlier,” Moitra said.
The assistant superintendent of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, who telephoned the parents and informed them about their daughter’s condition on the morning of August 9, has not been examined, Moitra said.
But Justice Ghosh felt it was important to know from the CBI the present status of the probe and whether the investigators believed that Roy was the lone accused.
Representing the state, advocate Kalyan Bandopadhyay said: “The state has no objection to the prayer if the law permits it. If at all further investigation can be allowed after the conclusion of a trial.”
Hearing all sides, Justice Ghosh told Majumdar to submit the case diary along with the status report with the answers to his questions at the next hearing fixed in his court at 3.30pm on Friday.