Calcutta HC To Decide On RG Kar Rape-Murder Plea's Maintainability On January 27

The Bengal government had moved the HC on Tuesday seeking capital punishment for convict Sanjay Roy against a Sealdaha Court's judgement of awarding life imprisonment.

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday said it will decide on the maintainability of the state government's petition seeking capital punishment for the RG Kar rape-murder convict on January 27. The division bench of Justices Debangshu Basak and Sabbir Rashidi pronounced its observation after the hearing.

The government on Tuesday moved the high court challenging the order of a Sealdaha Court that awarded jail till death to Roy. Investigating agency CBI objected to it on Wednesday questioning the role of state government in appealing for the death penalty.

Appearing for CBI, Deputy Solicitor General Rajdeep Majmudar objected to the petition and informed the court that only the investigating agency can appeal against the verdict of the lower court. Referring to Bihar's former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, he said," In the case related to the allegations of scams against Yadav, the Patna High Court observed that only the CBI can appeal against a lower court judgment."

In reply, the state advocate general Kishore Datta said," In Yadav's case, the high court observed CBI can investigate the case but the state had first started the investigation by filing an FIR."

Datta further said the investigation and law and order are state subject and the Kolkata Police started the RG Kar rape-murder investigation which was later shifted to CBI. Therefore, it is not right to correlate the two cases.

After hearing both parties, Justice Basak shifted the hearing to January 27. He asked the state counsel Debasish Roy whether the victim's family knew anything about the case. To which Roy replied in the negative and Justice Basak said he wanted to hear the family's statement based on which the maintainability will be decided.

The Sealdaha Court had awarded jail till death to the convict which attracted criticism from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who said the government would appeal against the verdict in the high court.