Supreme Court dismisses plea by former RG Kar Hospital director Sandip Ghosh against Supreme Court order for CBI probe into irregularities

Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arorafor Ghosh, submitted that the complainant had no objection to the investigation but was upset by certain adverse remarks made by the Supreme Court.

“As an accused, you have no option to intervene in a PIL if the Supreme Court is monitoring the investigation and transferring it to the CBI/SIT…”, said CJI.

She said the appeal was directed against the Supreme Court's finding linking the alleged irregularities to the August 9 rape and murder of a junior doctor.

However, the Supreme Court rejected this claim and stated that this was a matter for investigation. For reference, the Supreme Court stated: “Given the apparent connection between the aforesaid allegations and the place of incident (rape and murder) and considering the fact that the investigation in case XXXXX (Parents of Victim) v. State of West Bengal and Others in WPA (P) 339 of 2024 has already been entrusted to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in the interest of comprehensive and unbiased investigation, the investigation in the present case should also be transferred to the CBI.”

Arora submitted that the Supreme Court's order came in a PIL seeking relief filed by a former hospital employee, Akhtar Ali, whose earlier PILs on the same issue had been dismissed by the Supreme Court.

“If the petitions are motivated by a specific issue, these petitions must be treated with the utmost caution and care.” urged Arora.

“We don't need to give Akhtar Ali a clean bill of health. These are not cases that can be disposed of on a technicality of three PILs being dismissed. The Supreme Court is on remand. They have handed over the investigation to the CBI. At this point, you have no recourse at all. Akhtar Ali himself could be under investigation. That is a different issue. “, said the CJI.

“If the petition itself is limited to the issue of biomedical waste and contains no reference to any connection with this specific incident, could the Supreme Court have passed the order with the observations?” asked Arora.

“The issue of biomedical waste is a trigger. And that is why the Supreme Court wants this matter to be pursued to its logical conclusion. There is no need for us to intervene,” said CJI.

“I don’t understand why the Supreme Court concludes that there is an obvious connection,” asked Arora.

“We must not obstruct the investigation. We also request the CBI to provide us with status reports.” The CJI said. When Arora pressed for the observations to be deleted, the CJI said that these were “prima facie evidence”. At this point, Arora requested that the court should record that these were prima facie evidence, as otherwise the complainant would be prejudiced. However, the court refused to do so.

Arora then submitted that the CBI should investigate only to the extent that the bio-medical waste is taken into account without linking it to the murder-rape incident. Attorney General Tushar Mehta and Deputy Attorney General SV Raju objected to this contention, saying that an accused cannot have a say in how the investigation should be conducted. “Ms Arora, even we cannot say how you should investigate,” the CJI said.

Ghosh was the director of the hospital and college where the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor took place on August 9. On August 13, the Supreme Court also transferred the investigation into the doctor's death to the CBI.

Before the Supreme Court, Ghosh claimed that the inquiry was referred by the High Court without giving him a chance to be heard. He is upset with the Supreme Court's findings that appear to link the corruption charges against him to the hospital incident.

The transferred investigation is related to the allegations made by the former deputy superintendent of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Akhtar Ali, who had filed a case in the Calcutta High Court against the former principal Dr. Ghosh for allegedly committing serious violations of law.

In his plea, Ali alleges that Ghosh has committed serious violations of law such as abuse of dead bodies, resale of bio-waste in the open market, misappropriation of public funds, etc.

In the previous hearing, the Supreme Court had questioned why the state had initiated the SIT investigation only after the unfortunate incident of August 9, despite numerous complaints having been filed earlier.

The Supreme Court has taken up the case ex officio in the rape and murder cases and sought status reports from the CBI and West Bengal Police.

Case: Sandip Ghosh v. State of West Bengal | Diary No. 38744-2024