Day 1 At Kolkata Hospital After Rape-Murder: Top Court Highlights Anomalies

New Delhi: 

The Supreme Court today deep dived into the events at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital on Day One — after the discovery of the body of the 31-year-old doctor who was raped and murdered. And at every step, the judges pointed out discrepancies and anomalies that were more absorbing than any popular whodunit.

In particular, the court’s queries were around three points: The huge time lag between discovery of the body and the lodging of the First Information Report; the death being called unnatural even after a postmortem examination; the sealing of the crime scene after more than 12 hours. All these, the judges indicated, has contributed to a picture of a very distorted investigation.

The ball was set rolling by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta

Representing the Central Bureau of Investigation, the senior advocate started by picking holes in the timeline of events presented by the West Bengal government. He said what “surprised him the most” was the filing of the First Information Report at 11.45 pm, after the cremation of the body.

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, who was leading the three-judge bench, said what intrigued him was that the police filed a General Diary at 10.10 am, turned up, but sealed the crime scene at 10.10 pm. “What was happening there in all that time?” he said.
Once the state clarified the postmortem was finished by 7.10 pm and admitted that the complaint of unnatural death was filed by 11:30 pm.

Justice JB Pardiwala said, “Was it an unusual death? If so, what was the need for an autopsy? Here we can see that at 11:30 pm, an unusual death complaint is filed. And the FIR was filed after 15 minutes? Give accurate information to the court”.