RG Kar rape & murder: Calcutta HC asks victim's parents to approach trial court for permission to survey crime scene

Kolkata, June 26 (IANS) The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the parents of the junior woman doctor of state-run R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata, found raped and murdered within the hospital premises in August last year, to approach the trial court in the city where the matter is being heard in a parallel manner for permission to survey the crime scene.

Earlier this week, the victim’s parents made an appeal to the High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh with two pleas, the first being a fast-track hearing in the matter and the second being permission to survey the scene of the crime.

Thereafter, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the aspect of a larger conspiracy behind the crime of rape & murder, informed Justice Ghosh’s bench that their investigating officials have no objection to the victim’s parents surveying the scene of the crime.

As the matter came up for hearing at Justice Ghosh’s bench on Thursday afternoon, the latter asked the victim’s parents to approach for survey permission to the same trial court in Kolkata, which, earlier this year, sentenced the sole convict in the case, civic volunteer Sanjay Roy to life imprisonment.

While giving this direction, Justice Ghosh had also set a deadline for the trial court to decide the matter within 48 hours from the time of submission of the application for survey permission by the victim’s parents. He also authorised the trial court to fix the maximum number of people who could be present during the surveying of the scene of the crime.

Currently, the matter of ghastly rape and murder is being heard at three different courts. The first is at the trial court in Kolkata, which earlier this year sentenced Roy to life imprisonment.

The current hearing at the trial court is about the larger conspiracy in the crime of altering and tampering with the evidence during the initial phase of investigation by Kolkata Police before the charge of the probe was handed over to the CBI.

Two separate cases related to the matter are before the Calcutta High Court, one the plea by the victim’s parents seeking a fresh investigation of the crime of rape and murder and the second related to the CBI’s appeal seeking a death sentence for the convict.

At the same time, a hearing on the matter is also going on at the Supreme Court.

The CBI had submitted four status reports to the trial court on the progress of its investigation in the matter of the larger conspiracy behind the crime. However, the counsel of the victim’s family had earlier accused the agency of playing with words in their subsequent status reports.

The CBI had also been accused of conducting the probe in a lackadaisical manner since the beginning.

--IANS

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