Kolkata, March 19 – A new bench of the Calcutta High Court was constituted on Thursday to hear the case of the gruesome rape and murder of a junior doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in August 2024.
The new bench comprises Justices Rajasekhar Mantha and Rai Chattopadhyay.
The new bench was constituted because earlier this month, the previous division bench of Justices Debangshu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi recused themselves from hearing the matter because they were no longer hearing criminal cases.
The previous bench was assigned to hear the case by then Calcutta High Court Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, as that bench was handling criminal cases at the time. After the division bench of Justices Basak and Rashidi recused themselves from hearing the case, it was referred back to the current Chief Justice Sujoy Paul.
Finally, on Friday, the Chief Justice assigned the matter to the new division bench of Justices Mantha and Chattopadhyay.
On the morning of August 9, 2024, the body of a junior doctor at Kolkata's state-run R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital – the victim of the gruesome rape and murder – was discovered in a seminar hall within the hospital premises.
After a prolonged hearing in the case, a trial court in Kolkata convicted the sole accused, Sanjay Roy, a former civic volunteer of Kolkata Police, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. However, since the victim's parents were not satisfied with the findings of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)'s investigation into the matter, especially regarding identifying Roy as the sole convict in the case, they approached the Calcutta High Court with their arguments against the CBI findings.
They also requested a fast-track hearing in the matter.
Meanwhile, the CBI is currently continuing its investigation into the angle of a larger conspiracy behind the crime of rape and murder, and has also filed a few progress reports to the trial court in the matter.
