RG Kar case
Kolkata, Jan 21: The West Bengal government on Tuesday moved the Calcutta High Court to file an appeal seeking death penalty of the convict in the RG Kar hospital doctor’s rape and murder case and secured the court’s necessary permission.
The state government’s move comes in less than 24 hours after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced her intent to challenge before a higher court the order of Sealdah court that sentenced Sanjay Roy to life imprisonment until death in the case.
Advocate General Kishor Datta moved a division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi on Tuesday morning, seeking the court’s permission to file the appeal challenging the order passed by Additional District and Sessions Judge in Sealdah, Anirban Das, on Monday.
“The government has moved the high court and secured the court’s leave to file the appeal,” an official said.
High court sources maintained that the judicial process pertaining to the case could start this week itself if the due process of filing the appeal was completed by the end of the day on Tuesday.
The Sealdah court sentenced Roy to life imprisonment until death after he was convicted of raping and murdering the on-duty doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, rejecting demands for the death penalty saying it was not a “rarest of the rare” crime.
The court also ordered Roy to pay a Rs 50,000 fine and directed the state government to pay compensation of Rs 17 lakh to the family of the deceased doctor.
Holding that “in the realm of modern justice, we must rise above the primitive instinct of an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth or nail for a nail or a life for a life”, Das awarded rigorous imprisonment to Roy, the sole convict in the case, for the remainder of his natural life. (PTI)