Kolkata | Former principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital Sandip Ghosh was on Tuesday sent to judicial custody till September 23 by a special CBI court in a financial irregularities case.
The court also sent his security personnel Afsar Ali and two alleged associates – medical equipment vendor Biplab Singha and pharmacy shop owner Suman Hazara – to judicial custody till September 23.
Although the accused were previously remanded to CBI custody for eight days leaving the probe agency with the option to pray for another six days of maximum remand, the investigators made no such petition before the court.
“The CBI has already secured large amounts of digital evidence on the alleged crime. We need time to analyse that evidence. We do not need the accused in police custody immediately. But we may seek their custody again later, if required,” the agency counsel submitted in court.
Chaotic scenes were witnessed at the Alipore Court premises where Ghosh and others were produced, when lawyers, mostly women, demonstrated against the former RG Kar principal and tried to block the courtroom exit when he was being escorted out by security personnel.
Even the judge’s appeals to refrain from agitation fell on deaf ears.
The police summoned central paramilitary jawans to gain control over the situation.
While the protestors shouted 'chor chor' (thief, thief) at Ghosh, one person was seen hurling a slipper at the accused ex-principal and banging the prison van with it after the suspects were made to board the vehicle headed for the Presidency Correctional Home.
The lawyers alleged that “special treatment” was being offered to the accused by allowing them to use the courtroom exit used by the judges.
The agitating lawyers were heard raising ‘We want Justice’ slogans and chorused that the “blood of the victim won’t go in vain”. They even demanded that the accused “be hanged” for “abetting the gruesome rape and murder of the victim”.
Earlier, the court rejected the CBI’s application for a hearing on virtual mode and producing all four accused from the agency’s Nizam Palace office, where they were being held, in apprehension of violence at court premises.
The court directed that the accused will have to be produced before the judge in person and set a 3 pm deadline for it.
The agency’s anticipation of security concerns of the accused was based on the chaos at the court premises during Ghosh’s previous production on September 3 where he was slapped from behind by an agitator.
Rejecting the bail prayer of Ali and a separate plea to return of seized items from Sinha, the judge maintained that the probe was at an early stage and no leniency could be shown to any of the accused given the severity of the crime.
Ghosh and the others were arrested by the CBI on charges of financial irregularities on September 2 amid protests over the rape and murder of the trainee doctor at the RG Kar MCH on August 9.
The Calcutta High Court on August 23 ordered the transfer of the probe into the alleged financial irregularities at the hospital from a state-constituted Special Investigation Team (SIT) to the CBI.
The direction came in response to a petition by former deputy superintendent of the facility, Dr Akhtar Ali, who prayed for a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into multiple counts of alleged financial misconduct at the state-run institute during the tenure of Ghosh.
Ali accused Ghosh of forging work tenders for civil work and procurement of medicines and medical equipment, and trafficking of unclaimed dead bodies.
Ghosh has also been alleged to have provided irregular work orders to his arrested associates for running a hospital cafeteria and parking lot facilities.
Kolkata | Taking exception to the “language of the email”, agitating junior doctors on Tuesday rejected West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s invitation for talks at the state secretariat to resolve the impasse over the RG Kar hospital issue.
“Your small delegation (maximum 10 persons) may visit ‘Nabanna’ now to meet government representatives,” the email sent by the state’s Health Secretary N S Nigam to the protesting medics on Tuesday evening had stated.
“The language of the communication is not only disrespectful to us doctors, it’s downright insensitive. We find no reason to reply to this mail,” Dr Debasish Halder, a leader of the protesting doctors who organised a sit-in before the state health department headquarters at ‘Swasthya Bhavan’ in Salt Lake, said.
The doctors conveyed that although “doors remain open” for talks with the state’s highest authorities, they would continue with their agitation till their demands are met.
The protesting doctors of state-run healthcare facilities, currently on ‘cease work’ for over a month to protest the alleged rape and murder of the RG Kar hospital medic, defied the 5 pm deadline set by the Supreme Court to return to work, and conveyed their intentions to stay put before the ‘Swasthya Bhavan’ and keep pressing for their demands.
In “clean up Swasthya Bhavan” march earlier in the day, the stirring doctors demanded the resignations of the Health Secretary, Director of Health Education (DHE), and Director of Health Services (DHS), besides pressing for marching orders of Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal as part of their five-point demand charter.
The protesters had, on their part, too, set a 5 pm deadline coinciding with the time frame of the apex court, for the state administration to act on their demands.
Addressing the media shortly after 7.30 pm from ‘Nabanna’, Bengal’s Minister of State for Health, Chandrima Bhattacharya, claimed that the chief minister had taken a “positive approach” by extending her olive branch to the agitating medics.
The CM is also in charge of the state’s health portfolio.
“The email was sent to the official ID of the Junior Doctors’ Front at around 6.10 pm. The chief minister was waiting for the doctors’ delegation to come for the meeting. She left her office at 7.30 pm since there was no response from the protesters,” Bhattacharya said.
The doctors, though, said they found the language of the mail humiliating since the government restricted the number of representatives to 10.
“Moreover, this email never came from the state secretariat. It was sent to us by the health secretary, whose resignation we seek. This is an insult,” Halder said.
“Our protests and our ‘cease work’ will continue," he asserted, indicating yet another night-long sit-in before the state health headquarters.
