New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that the CBI's status report on the investigation regarding the alleged rape and murder of trainee doctor is "worse, really disturbing, and it has disturbed the judges".
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and comprising justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was hearing the suo moto case regarding the alleged rape and murder of the trainee doctor at the RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata.
During the hearing, a counsel said the jeans and undergarments of the victim never went to the post-mortem doctor, and now it has been clarified that they were lying in the room and asked why the investigating officer did not take it. “There has to be two seizures: one at the place of occurrence, what they seized, and the second is where the post-mortem took place, samples which were collected (of the victim)”, he said.
“Lordships will have to look into the case diary. What is troubling is that the seizures had to take place….next morning on August 10, at 10:30 am, whether those samples were sent to the magistrate…because then the magistrate had to forward it to the CFSL. What is the date on which these samples were sent to the magistrate for forwarding…”, contended the counsel.
The CJI said he does not want to disclose the details (of the CBI's status report), as it would dislocate the investigation and also do not want anybody to take advantage of it as a technical issue later on, and added but “what the CBI has revealed in its status report is worse, really disturbing!”. “What you are flagging is of utmost concern. But I can only share with you that we are ourselves disturbed with what CBI has told us ( in the status report)….they (CBI) are themselves very concerned”, said the CJI.
The counsel argued that the Kolkata Police have only given 27 minutes of the footage, why till date the entire footage has not been seized and when Kolkata Police gave it to the CBI, did they use a blocker device, which ensures the hash value, which is fingerprint of every electronic document, does not change.
The CJI asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, "this aspect which the counsel has highlighted….can you not summon the state police that it should be handed over to the CBI?....seize it ( if not handed over)”.
Mehta said it was not handed over . “Have you seized the DVR and have used the blocker device or not? Make the authenticity of the hash value…”, the bench asked.
Mehta said he needs to check whether it was overwritten or not. Counsel said the DVR is the entire video footage, before and after the incident, and also the dead body challan was shown to the high court, and it should be brought before the apex court.
Mehta said documents were given to the CBI by Kolkata Police and the challan was not included in it. The bench insisted that it does not want the investigation to be dislocated and, while referring to the letter by the parents of the victim, told a counsel, representing the parents' of the victim, to be rest assured that the letter will be looked into by the investigating officer of the CBI.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the West Bengal government, regarding the challan, said that document was not being used since 1997. However, the CJI said the police should cooperate with the CBI and they want the entirety of the footage and asked, has the DVR been handed over?
Sibal said 7-8 of CCTV footage already given to the CBI and also the DVR has been handed over to the CBI, and handed over in front of doctors, and a handing over document is there which has been signed by the CBI. Mehta said the DVR only has 27 minutes of footage.
Sibal said it was sealed and they had opened it. “Maybe it was sealed and nobody can claim that CBI has destroyed…CBI is saying what was sealed and given to us was only 27 minutes”, said the CJI. Sibal said 7-8 hours footage was given to the CBI and four hard drives were given.
“This is the matter of further investigation, the CBI has the SHO in its custody…There two distinct things: one is video footage of search and seizure and independent of that you have the DVR of the CCTV of the hospital particularly around the seminar room”, CJI told Mehta.
“We want to know whether the DVR of the CCTV footage was handed over to the CBI. CBI says we have 27 minutes of the raw footage of the search and seizure….is it your statement that nothing remains with the police”, CJI asked Sibal, who replied that everything has been handed over to the CBI.
After perusing the status report submitted by CBI, the bench observed that the CBI is not "sleeping over" the investigation and that they need to be given time to "unearth the truth, and declined to divulge the details, furnished by the CBI, saying that disclosures might hamper the investigating.
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