Set up new CBI team to probe RG Kar case, submit report by June 25: Calcutta HC

THe Calcutta heights margaret court on th ordered the shaping of a three-member telephone exchange Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special investigation team (SIT), headed by a joint director (Eastern Zone), in the 2024 RG Kar Hospital rape and murder case and sought its report during the next hearing on June 25, lawyers who attended the hearing said.“The division bench of Justices Shampa Sarkar and Tirthankar Ghosh passed the order after hearing the petition that the deceased junior doctor’s parents filed in 2025 alleging a larger conspiracy and concerted efforts to hide evidence at and around the crime scene,” a lawyer present in court said.The court directed the CBI to examine the sequence of events — from the time the victim had dinner with some junior doctors on the night of August 9, 2024, as claimed by her parents, to the discovery of her body hours later in the third-floor seminar hall of the hospital’s emergency building, and finally, the cremation.“The victim’s family alleged that those who had dinner with their daughter were neither questioned by the Kolkata Police nor the CBI, which took over the probe following the Calcutta high court’s August 13, 2024, order,” the lawyer added.The court also directed the CBI to file a report on the investigations conducted after the October 7, 2024, chargesheet, which led to the jail sentence of former Kolkata Police civic volunteer Sanjay Roy, whom the CBI described as the sole perpetrator of the crime.In a verbal reply to this direction, the CBI’s lawyers told the bench that around 80 people were questioned during this period of one year and seven months.Thursday’s development came days after the division bench of Justices Rajasekhar Mantha and Rai Chattopadhyay recused itself from further hearing on the parents’ petition on May 12, after directing the CBI to start a fresh probe in April. The case was redirected to the bench of Chief Justice Sujoy Paul, who assigned the matter to the bench of Justices Shampa Sarkar and Tirthankar Ghosh.The RG Kar crime was one of the key issues in the recently held Bengal Assembly polls, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) promising an inquiry commission if it came to power. The BJP fielded Ratna Debnath, the deceased’s mother, from the Panihati seat in the North 24 Parganas district, and won.Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah both campaigned for Debnath, who alleged after the crime that senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders and government officials hatched a conspiracy to kill her daughter to hide something.On May 15, six days after being sworn in as chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari suspended former Kolkata Police commissioner Vineet Goyal and two other Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, Indira Mukherjee and Abhisek Gupta, on charges of mishandling the case and offering money to the deceased student’s parents and ordered a probe against them.