New division bench of Calcutta HC to hear RG Kar rape-murder case today

KOLKATA: A new division bench of the Calcutta High Court, Justice Shampa Sarkar and Justice Tirthankar Ghosh, will hear on Tuesday the case on the 2024 ghastly rape and murder of a woman doctor of the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital.

As per the cause list of the Calcutta High Court, the hearing in the matter will start at 1 p.m.

After the previous division bench headed by Justice Rajasekhar Mantha recused from hearing the matter on May 12, observing that “this important case needs to be heard quickly”, the Calcutta High Court’s Chief Justice Sujoy Paul, on May 15, referred the matter to the new division bench of Justice Sarkar and Justice Ghosh.

While referring the matter to the new bench, Justice Paul observed that all petitions connected to the matter, including the plea by the victim’s family seeking permission to visit the crime scene, would now be heard by the new division bench.

To recall, although the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the matter, did not object to the plea from the victim’s family seeking permission to visit the crime scene, the previous state government, led by the previous Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, had objected.

In fact, the previous division bench headed by Justice Mantha during a hearing then questioned why the state government was objecting to the plea from the victim’s family, when CBI, as the investigating agency, was not objecting.

Recently, the new state government, led by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, announced the suspension of former Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Kumar Goyal and two deputy commissioners of the city police, namely Indira Mukherjee and Abhishek Gupta, for shoddy handling of the initial probe by the city police before the charge of the probe was handed over to the CBI by the Calcutta High Court.