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The Supreme Court, on the second day of the hearing of the RG Kar case on Thursday, August 22, slammed the West Bengal Police and the West Bengal Government for various delays and unclear timelines during the investigation into the rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor at the RG Kar Hospital and Medical College in Kolkata.
The SC Bench, comprised of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra were examining the status reports submitted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the West Bengal Police about the investigation into the case so far, states Bar and Bench.
During the hearing, the Bench questioned the West Bengal Government, represented by Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, regarding two discrepancies in the timeline:
Why the death of the victim was marked in the General Diary of the police station in jurisdiction much after the post-mortem was concluded
Why there was a 14-hour delay in filing a First Investigation Report after the victim’s body was discovered
Quizzing the West Bengal government regarding inconsistencies in General Diary entries, the Bench questioned why the case was registered as an unnatural death at 11.30 pm when the autopsy was conducted from 6.10 pm to 7.10 pm on August 9.
"How was it that the post-mortem was conducted at 6.10 pm on August 9, and yet the unnatural death information was sent to Tala police station at 11.30 pm on August 9? This is extremely disturbing," the bench remarked, as quoted by Mint.
Justice Pardiwala also remarked that he hadn’t seen such a procedure being followed by the police in 30 years of his career.
To clear this, the Bench directed that the officer responsible for the initial entry be present at the next hearing and state the exact time of entry and clear these discrepancies.
Moreover, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, who was representing the CBI alleged that the hospital did not have an FIR filed and that the victim’s father insisted on it and had it filed himself.
He further added that disturbingly, the FIR was filed at 11.45 pm on August 9, after the victim’s body had been handed over to her parents and was cremated. “We entered the probe on day five and the crime scene is altered," he alleged.
Responding to these claims, CJI Chandrachud asked, “The principal of the college should have come straightaway to the college and directed the filing of the FIR. Who was in touch with?”, implying that the principal was protecting the perpetrator.
Ensure safety of doctors, Bench tells Centre
During the hearing, Senior Advocates Geeta Luthra and Karuna Nundy, representing the Junior Resident Doctors at RG Kar and doctors of Kolkata respectively stated that the doctors claimed to have been targeted by “officials, goons, members of the hospital administration and people of the hospital.”
The Bench, thus, ordered that the doctors must not be subjected to coercive action for protesting and that peaceful protests must not be disrupted. The order, however, also states that the Police can follow proper protocol while dealing with protests.
The Bench also directed the Secretary of the Union Health Ministry to open a portal through which doctors and other stakeholders can submit suggestions to improve doctors’ safety to the National Task Force (NTF).
Further, the bench implored all parties involved in the case to not politicise the issue.
“The law will take its course and we are ensuring that the law does take its course. Second, we are also concerned about the safety and welfare of doctors. For the future, we want to institutionalise it,” the CJI remarked.
