The Supreme Court began hearing on Tuesday (September 17) its suo motu case regarding the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, amid the ongoing protests by doctors in West Bengal. A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra is conducting the hearing on the matter.
Supreme Court’s hearing significant today
The top court’s hearing is significant as, in the last hearing, it had directed the resident doctors to resume duty by 5 pm on September 10 to avoid punitive action by the state government. Kapil Sibal, representing the Mamata government in the apex court, had claimed that the doctors’ absence from work had led to the death of 23 patients till September 9, the day the case was last heard.
Despite the SC’s direction, the resident doctors continued their strike.
Mamata Banerjee and protesting junior doctors on Monday held a meeting after resolving the deadlock. The first round of talk lasted for nearly 2 hours at Mamata’s residence, followed by another two-and-a-half hours of finalising minutes of meetings. In the meeting, Mamata accepted the protesting medic’s demands and decided to remove Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal who will resign at 4 pm today.
The Chief Minister had visited the protest site on September 14 and had invited the protesting doctors for talks.
The proposed meeting on Saturday fell through, with the protesters claiming that they were asked to leave “unceremoniously” after having made to wait for three hours at the gates of CM’s residence. The doctors had refused to enter her residence due to the government’s rejection of their demand for a live telecast.
What had Supreme Court said in the last hearing?
The CJI-led bench had on September 9 voiced concern over the absence of the “challan”, a key document forwarding the body of the junior doctor for postmortem, from the records presented before it and sought a report from the West Bengal government.
It had also directed the protesting resident doctors to resume work to avoid adverse action by the state government.
On August 22, the apex court had ripped the Kolkata Police apart over the delay in registering an unnatural death case after the junior doctor’s body was found at the hospital, calling it “extremely disturbing”. It also questioned the time taken for completing the necessary procedural formalities.
As street protests raged in Kolkata and many towns and cities across the country, the top court had constituted a 10-member National Task Force (NTF) to formulate a protocol for ensuring the safety and security of doctors and other health care professionals.
Terming the incident as “horrific”, the apex court had excoriated the state government over the delay in filing the FIR and allowing thousands of people to vandalise the state-run facility.
The medic’s body with severe injury marks was found inside the seminar hall of the hospital’s chest department on August 9. A civic volunteer, Sanjay Roy, was arrested in connection with the case the following day. On August 13, the Calcutta High Court had ordered transfer of the probe from the Kolkata Police to the CBI, which started its investigation on August 14.
(With PTI inputs)
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