New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday shot a volley of questions to the West Bengal government regarding sequence, timing of legal formalities conducted by police in registration of unnatural death, and the postmortem, in the brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata.
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and comprising justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said the general diary (GD) entry is at 10:10 AM, which recorded that the information was received over the telephone that a trainee was found lying unconscious in the seminar room of the hospital. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, said the doctors are saying she was unconscious though she was already dead.
Referring to the entry, the bench noted that it says the victim died due to manual strangulation and it was homicidal in nature and indicated at the possibility of sexual assault, and several witnesses’ were examined. “One thing is very clear that the cordoning off, the preservation of the crime scene takes place after the post-mortem report is conducted, that is the GD entry says….”, noted the bench, adding that the FSL team reached the spot and the dog squad also arrived. The bench also noted that the post-mortem was conducted by a board of autopsy surgeons.
The bench said an unnatural death case was registered after the police officer returned to the police station.
Sibal requested the bench to refer to the case diary.
The bench asked why the officer mentioned 23:00 hours the registration of the case and “show us one document prior to 23:00 hours, where UD case number is found”.
Sibal referred to page 2 of the document being examined by the bench. Justice Pardiwala said let them investigate and it seems a page has been inserted in the document, which is examined by the court and added, “prima facie, it is obvious. Prime facie it appears, let them (CBI) look into it”.
Sibal said, “no, no…”. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said this page should be given to the CBI and added these documents are part of the case diary and they have not been given to the CBI. “They are and they (CBI) are not producing them…an impression is being created that it is contrary to the record”, said Sibal, insisting that the page was not inserted.
Sibal made it clear to the court that everything is present in the case diary and the case diary has been given to the CBI as per the high court's order. The apex court was informed that the case diary also mentions unnatural death, post-mortem and inquest proceedings and Sibal said that all this is before 11:00 pm, so how can it be challenged? The bench was informed that the inquest proceeding (mandatory procedure to be followed after an unnatural death) is at 4:40 PM in the evening.
'We know what 150g refers to'
During the hearing, a counsel interrupted to mention that the post-mortem report noted 150 grams of semen. The apex court told a counsel to not use social media content to make an argument and added, “we know what 150g refers to in autopsy…”
The bench noted that after the post mortem and inquest, the body was handed over to the parents’, and after return to the police station an unnatural death (UD) case was registered. The bench said it appears that the initial UD report was registered at 10:10 am and FIR was recorded at 11:30 at night.
The bench said it has seen the CD and added that the judges’ can form the view of the movements of the police officers, when the body was seen, when the police came, unnatural death report, post mortem report, cremation and then FIR. The bench said it matches with the FIR also now.
Mehta, representing the CBI, urged the apex court to read the general diary entry and added that after returning of the police officer to the police station an unnatural death (UD) case was registered at 11:30 pm, and earlier was only a GD entry. “A UD case has been registered with the police station... so this UD case is registered and earlier was a general diary entry. This is the UD case at 23:30 on August 9 and at 23:45 FIR was registered, that is how chronology is presented”, said Mehta.
The hearing will continue after lunch break.
