New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the West Bengal government on facts relating to the rape and murder of a medical student at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and questioned the sequence and timing of legal formalities conducted by the Kolkata Police.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra termed the delay in registering the unnatural death of the woman doctor “extremely disturbing” and said that it was very surprising that the postmortem of the deceased doctor was conducted on August 9 between 6.10 pm to 7.10 pm before the registration of case as unnatural death.
“How was it that the post-mortem was conducted at 6.10 pm on August 9 and yet the unnatural death information is sent to Tala police station at 11.30 pm on August 9. This is extremely disturbing,” the bench said.
The bench, during the hearing, also appealed to the protesting doctors to resume work and assured them that no adverse action will be taken against them once they rejoin.
The counsel representing the resident doctors at AIIMS Nagpur submitted before the bench that they are being victimised for protests over the Kolkata rape-murder case.
“Once they get back to duty, we will prevail upon authorities to not take adverse action. How will public health infrastructure run if the doctors do not work,” the bench said and added that the doctors can approach the top court if there is difficulty after after reporting to work.
The Supreme Court was hearing a suo motu cognisance it had taken on its own on the incident.
The top court, during the last hearing on Tuesday, had directed the CBI and the Kolkata Police to submitted their status report on the progress of the investigation into rape and murder of the woman doctor and from the West Bengal government on the progress of the investigation into vandalism and violence on August 15.
The CBI and the Kolkata Police submitted their status report before the top court in sealed covers following the direction of the apex court and currently the bench is perusing the reports.
A thirty-one year old postgraduate doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, who was on a thirty six hour duty shift, was murdered and allegedly raped inside the seminar room of the hospital on August 9, 2024.
Following the incident at the hospital, agitations and protests were called by doctors’ associations, student bodies and civic groups across the country.
The Calcutta High Court, while hearing a bunch of pleas seeking among other things a court-monitored investigation of the crime and the conduct of the hospital authorities, including the role of the Principal of the medical college and other officials by a special team of investigating officers, transferred the probe to the CBI.
The Supreme Court later took cognisance of the matter on its own last week and directed the investigating agencies to submit their status reports.
During the hearing on Tuesday, the top court had termed the incident as “horrific” and had come down hard on the state government over the delay in filing the First Information Report (FIR) and allowing thousands of miscreants to vandalise the hospital on August 15.
