New Delhi, Jan 29: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed hospitals and medical colleges across the country to not penalise doctors and medical professionals, who participated in protests against the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, but had returned to their duty pursuant to the top court’s appeal.
On August 22, 2024, the SC had assured the resident doctors and interns that no adverse action would be taken against them for participating in protests in the wake of the horrific incident.
During the hearing on the suo moto case titled “Alleged rape and murder incident of a trainee doctor in R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, and related issues”, the apex court had urged the protesting medical fraternity across the country to resume work at the earliest.
“Since this court is seized of the matter pertaining to the safety and well-being of all medical professionals at their workplaces, and the issue involving high national priority, we will request all the doctors, who are abstaining from work, to resume work at the earliest,” a bench headed by then CJI D.Y. Chandrachud had said.
It had said that medical doctors and professionals stand assured that their concerns are receiving the highest attention from the top court. After a bench headed by CJI Sanjiv Khanna was apprised that several punitive measures, including marking protesting doctors on leave, deduction of casual leaves, etc. were taken by the administration of different hospitals, the bench, also comprising Justice Sanjay Kumar, clarified that the absence of doctors, who have resumed work pursuant to its August 22, 2024 order, will be regularised and not treated as absence from duty.
“This direction is issued in peculiar facts and circumstances and shall not be read as laying down a precedent,” the CJI Khanna-led Bench added. Taking suo moto cognisance of the rape and murder case of the junior doctor at the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, the Supreme Court had termed the incident “horrific,” which raises the “systemic issue of safety of doctors across the country”.
“We are deeply concerned about the fact that there is an absence of safe conditions of work for young doctors across the country, particularly, public hospitals,” it had said. The apex court had ordered the formation of a National Task Force (NTF) to suggest measures for the security of medical professionals across the country, observing that the safety of doctors is the “highest national concern”.
Meanwhile, a division bench of Justices Debangshu Basak and Shabbar Rashidi of the Calcutta High Court has reserved its decision as to whether both the appeals — one by CBI and the other by the West Bengal government — against the special court verdict convicting civic volunteer Sanjay Roy of the crime and sentencing him to life imprisonment will be admitted, or any one of the two will be taken.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the state government would move the Calcutta HC challenging the quantum of the sentence and the state government would be seeking the death penalty for the convict.
“I am convinced that it is indeed a rarest of rare cases which demands capital punishment. We want to insist upon the death penalty in this most sinister and sensitive case,” she said. However, Deputy Solicitor General, Rajdeep Majumdar, argued in the high court that it was only the CBI, which is the investigating agency in the case, and the victim’s parents who could move such a plea, and not the state government, which is not a party in the case.
On Monday, the victim’s father said they are not seeking capital punishment for Roy right at this moment. “We want the names of all those behind my daughter’s end to surface. We want the highest punishment for all of them and not just for Sanjay Roy. So we are not seeking capital punishment for Sanjay Roy now. The rest will be explained by our counsel,” claimed the victim’s father.
IANS