NEW DELHI, Sept 3: The Centre has moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to West Bengal to co-operate and logistically support the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel providing security at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital and college premises in Kolkata where a 31-year old trainee postgraduate doctor was brutally raped and murdered on August 9.
The Centre said the CISF personnel were faced with accommodation issues. The CISF was deployed at the hospital on the basis of Supreme Court orders on August 20 and 22. The top court had taken suo motu cognisance of the crime and constituted a National Task Force to suggest security reforms, better work conditions and infrastructure facilities for doctors and medical staffers in public hospitals across the country.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud had said, “The nation cannot wait for another rape and murder in order to bring in safety laws for medical professionals and doctors.” The Chief Justice had repeatedly reached out to the protesting doctors and medical staffers, saying their concerns about work safety and better facilities would be given the highest priority by the Supreme Court. Doctors had gone on a nationwide protest in the aftermath of the crime.
In its latest petition, the Central government has now complained about the West Bengal government in the apex court, saying persistent non-cooperation would amount to contempt of a judicial order. The CISF was deployed to R.G. Kar following submissions that the police “ran away” when a mob attacked the protest site at the hospital and vandalised the campus on August 14.
The court had even taken notice of a complaint by a senior resident that hooligans breached the women’s hostel on the premises, calling out inmates by their names and threatening them. “The safety of doctors who don the role of health providers is a matter of national concern,” Chief Justice Chandrachud had stressed.
Meanwhile, the former principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Dr Sandip Ghosh, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday, was sent to 8-day police custody on Tuesday. The next hearing of the case will be on September 10.
The Anti-Corruption Branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Dr Sandip Ghosh, along with three others, over alleged corruption and financial misconduct at the RG Kar during his tenure as the principal. Dr Ghosh, two vendors, Biplav Singha, Suman Hazra, and the additional security to Dr Ghosh, Afsar Ali have been arrested by the CBI. Dr Ghosh was under investigation for alleged corruption and financial irregularities at the college and hospital, following a directive from a single bench of the Calcutta High Court, which ordered the CBI to probe the matter.
Earlier today, Sandip Ghosh and 3 others were brought to Alipore Judges Court in connection with RG Kar Medical College and Hospital financial irregularities case. Lawyers raised slogans outside Alipore Judges Court in Kolkata and demanded justice for the deceased doctor and death penalty for RG Kar Medical College and Hospital’s former principal Sandip Ghosh.
Earlier, doctors from B. R. Singh Hospital, Eastern Railway, conducted the medical tests of Dr Sandip Ghosh and three others arrested. On August 24, following the orders of the Calcutta High Court, an official FIR was registered by the CBI against Ghosh on the alleged corruption case. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) of Kolkata also suspended the membership of former Sandip Ghosh amid a CBI probe into the corruption case.
Meanwhile, the junior doctors also held a protest in Kolkata demanding an immediate resignation of the Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal. “Until the Commissioner of Police doesn’t agree to meet us, or resigns then we would be protesting day and night. Until he resigns, or comes to meet us, or allows us to meet him, that is what we would accept. We would not accept anyone under him, we need to meet him,” one of the protestors said.
(Manas Dasgupta)