The Bengal Government’s appeal against the life imprisonment sentence handed to Sanjay Roy – the man convicted of raping and murdering a doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital in August last year – is not maintainable, the Central Bureau of Investigation told the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday morning. Yesterday, the Mamata Banerjee Government had approached the Calcutta High Court to challenge the verdict. The State Government has demanded the death penalty instead for the sole culprit. The alacrity with which the Mamata Banerjee Government had approached the High Court was criticised by the father of the victim as being “over-zealous”.
Today, the Central agency – which has come under criticism from many quarters, including the State and the doctors’ family, over an investigation the court ruled yielded insufficient material to warrant the death penalty – told the court only the Union Government, or itself, could appeal the inadequacy of the sentence in this case. “The Supreme Court has held that the Central Government alone will be empowered to admit an appeal in cases which are investigated by a Central agency… the State will not be empowered,” the CBI counsel told the Division Bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Shabbir Rashidi.
The agency also laid down a second precedence; “… also, it was held in the Lalu Prasad Yadav case that only the prosecutor (i.e., itself) can prefer an appeal…” In response to the second precedence, the State Advocate-General Kishor Dutta pointed out that the appeal in the Lalu Yadav case was against acquittal, and also that the original complaint in the RG Kar case was filed by the Kolkata Police. “In our case… the FIR (first information report) was lodged by the State police force, which was then transferred by the High Court. That is the difference… law and order is a State subject. The State is primarily responsible for the investigation… they cannot be construed to be a bystander.”
“This case was initially registered by the State… not the CBI,” he insisted. The court, after hearing preliminary arguments by both sides, then sought a response from Roy’s counsel, who was present but said he had not been allowed to visit his client, something to which Justice Basak took strong exception. “Why? Why is he not being allowed to visit the convict?” The court then asked why the State Government had not made the victim’s family a party in its plea. The court then listed the matter for a second hearing on Monday, January 27.
Reacting to the happenings, Suvendu Adhikari, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Leader of the Opposition, said: “There can be only three parties to this case in the High Court – the CBI, Sanjoy Roy and the family of the victim. Mamata Government has no locus standi to be a party to the case. Mamata Banerjee Government is doing drama. The father of our dead doctor sister has repeatedly said how Mamata Banerjee and her Government and the Kolkata police destroyed all evidence to protect those close to her.” On Tuesday evening, amid outrage over a Kolkata court sentencing Roy to a life term instead of handing down the death penalty, West Bengal Chief Minister had expressed strong disappointment.
“When someone is a demon… can the society be human? Sometimes they get out after a few years. If someone commits a crime, should we forgive them? If someone commits a crime and gets away, he will do it again. Our job is not to protect them,” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had raged. Banerjee also questioned the lower court’s contention – that the RG Kar Hospital rape-murder case is not “rarest of rare”, which is the umbrella term for criteria to execute a convict. “How does the judgment say it is not ‘rarest of rare’… I say it is rare and very, very heinous,” she said. And, in responding to the sentence, the Chief Minister was quick to make her point, saying, “… if the case stayed with us, we would have ensured the death penalty.” Banerjee and her Government had been heavily criticised by numerous stakeholders, including the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the protesting doctors, and the woman’s parents, over alleged mishandling of the initial investigation.
