Kolkata: The Calcutta high court on Thursday ordered the formation of a three-member Central 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.
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“The division bench of Justices Shampa Sarkar and Tirthankar Ghosh passed the order after hearing the petition by 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 the court said.
The development comes days after the division bench of justices Rajasekhar Mantha and Rai Chattopadhyay recused itself from further hearing the victim’s parents’ petition on May 12, a month after directing the CBI to start a fresh probe.
On May 15, chief minister Suvendu Adhikari suspended former Kolkata police commissioner Vineet Goyal and two other IPS officers on charges of mishandling the police investigation and offering money to the victim’s parents. Adhikari also ordered a probe against them.
On Thursday, 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 parents 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, charge sheet, which led to the jail term for former Kolkata police civic volunteer, Sanjay Roy, whom the CBI described as the sole perpetrator of the crime.
In a verbal reply to these directions, CBI’s lawyers told the bench that around 80 people were questioned during this period.
The RG Kar crime was one of the key issues in the recently held Bengal assembly polls, which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept. Promising an inquiry commission if it came to power, the BJP fielded Ratna Debnath, the victim’s mother, from the Panihati seat in the North 24 Parganas district, which she won.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah both campaigned for Debnath, who alleged after the crime that senior Trinamool Congress leaders and government officials hatched a conspiracy to kill her daughter to hide something.
