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The West Bengal government on Tuesday moved the Calcutta High Court seeking death penalty of convict Sanjoy Roy in the RG Kar hospital doctor's rape and murder case, challenging the order of the trial court that sentenced him to life imprisonment till death.
The state’s move came in less than 24 hours after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her disappointment with the verdict on Monday and announced her intent to challenge the judgment before a higher court.
Advocate General Kishor Datta moved a division bench comprising Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi on Tuesday morning, seeking the court's leave to file the appeal challenging the order passed by Additional District and Sessions Judge in Sealdah, Anirban Das.
“The government has moved the high court and secured the court's permission to file the appeal,” an official said.
High court sources maintained that the hearings pertaining to the appeal may begin as early as Wednesday since the due process of filing the case was completed by the state by Tuesday end.
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 ₹50,000 fine and directed the state government to pay compensation of ₹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. Asserting that the RG Kar incident was a "rare, heinous and sensitive crime", West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee on Tuesday said if someone gets away after committing a crime, he will again do it and "it is not our job to give him protection."
On Monday, she had expressed dissatisfaction with the Sealdah court’s verdict, asserting that had the case been handled by the Kolkata Police, the death penalty would have been ensured.
Reiterating her dismay at the judgment and voicing her cry for death penalty, Banerjee, while addressing a public meeting in Malda on Tuesday, said, “I have been seeking capital punishment for the accused in the RG Kar rape-murder case. If someone is so demonic and barbaric, how can society remain humane? We passed the Aparajita Bill, but the Centre is sitting on it.”
“We have included the death penalty in the Aparajita Bill. We want this Bill to become a model for the country,” she added.
The Aparajita Bill passed by the West Bengal Assembly in September 2024 seeks capital punishment for rape convicts if their actions result in the victim's death or leave her in a vegetative state and stipulates life sentence without parole for other perpetrators.
The chief minister said if someone is given life imprisonment, the person can get parole.
“If someone commits a crime, should we forgive him? We have encountered cases where people have gone out (of prison) within three months. I am really shocked by the judgment. I was once a lawyer and fought several cases. The judge said this was not the rarest of rare cases and could not award capital punishment. If this is not the rarest of rare cases then what is?”
If someone gets away after committing such acts, he will keep repeating such crimes, she said adding, “It is not our job to give him protection.”
Responding to the CM’s comment, the victim’s father urged the leader to go slow.
“The convict was spared the death sentence because there were loopholes in the CBI probe. We are waiting for the copy of judgment to reach our hands and we will decide ourselves what to do next. The CM doesn’t need to get so pro-active,” he told reporters.
He asked, “What was she doing when her CP (Commissioner of Kolkata Police) and her police were erasing evidence from the scene of crime?”
The responses from Banerjee’s political opposition were equally scathing.
“The state’s hurry is suspicious. We also want capital punishment for the guilty but there’s a case pending before the Supreme Court to determine who else could be involved. It seems that the government wants to silence Roy as quickly as it can,” said Sukanta Majumdar, president of the BJP’s Bengal unit.
“Why did the CM shield the culprits during the initial stages of investigation? Is she a judge to decide whether this has been a travesty of justice?” questioned senior CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty.
If her police were so efficient, why did she fail to secure death penalty for the convicts in the Kamduni rape and murder case of 2013, he asked. "She is saying such things because it suits her politically,” Chakraborty added.
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