New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea filed by Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medica...
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea filed by Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital where a woman doctor was found raped and murdered on August 9, challenging the CBI probe into the alleged financial irregularities at the state-run institute during his tenure.
A bench presided over by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud said
that as an accused, Sandip Ghosh has no locus to intervene in PIL proceedings
when the Calcutta High Court is monitoring the investigation and has entrusted
the probe to the CBI.
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for
Ghosh, said that the petition filed before the apex court has not challenged
the CBI investigation into the alleged financial irregularities but questioned
its linkage with the alleged rape and murder of the doctor in the hospital.
At this, the Bench, also comprising Justice J.B.
Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said, “Both aspects are a matter of investigation.”
Arora reiterated there cannot be any nexus between
the issue of the alleged selling of biomedical waste and the incident of
alleged rape and murder, adding that serious prejudice will be caused to Ghosh
if adverse observations made in the Calcutta High Court are not expunged.
“I am not objecting to the CBI probe but aggrieved
with certain observations,” she said. She further
highlighted that identical petitions were dismissed by the Calcutta HC in the
past.
However, the apex court said that only “prima
facie” observations were made by the Calcutta High Court, where the issue of
biomedical waste was a “trigger”.
“We cannot order CBI to investigate only this and
nothing else, which could be likely an offence,” the CJI-led Bench said,
clarifying that it would not stultify the CBI probe.
The special leave petition Ghosh had filed before
the apex court challenged the August 23 order of the Calcutta HC
directing the CBI to take charge of the investigation into the alleged
financial irregularities when he was in charge of the medical hospital.
There had been several complaints about financial irregularities at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital when Ghosh was at the helm of affairs there as the principal.
Acting on a petition by the whistleblower, Akhtar
Ali, a former deputy medical superintendent of R.G. Kar, a bench of
Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj of the Calcutta HC said the CBI inquiry will be
court-monitored. The same afternoon, Ghosh approached a division bench of
Justices Harish Tandon and Hiranmay Bhattacharya challenging the single-judge
bench order. However, he was given no instant relief and was advised to get a
copy of the single-judge bench’s order first.
Instead of approaching the division bench again
with the single-judge bench’s order copy, Ghosh chose to move to the Supreme
Court.
Following the HC order, CBI officials
conducted raid and search operations at multiple locations in Kolkata. Ghosh
and three others were taken into custody by the CBI’s Economic Offences Wing on
September 2 evening. A special court in Kolkata on Tuesday had sent Ghosh, arrested
over alleged financial irregularities at the state-run college, to CBI custody for eight days.
Ghosh had been interrogated both in the financial
irregularities case as well as the ghastly rape and murder of junior doctor of
R.G. Kar within the hospital premises last month. The central agency officials
are conducting parallel probes in both these cases which are court-directed as
well as court-monitored.
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