Kolkata: On Wednesday, the CBI filed an appeal in the Calcutta High Court seeking the death penalty for Sanjay Roy, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday for the rape and murder of a 31-year-old resident doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9 last year.
The appeal, presented before a division bench, also challenges the maintainability of a similar plea filed by the West Bengal government on Tuesday. The state government had sought capital punishment for Roy after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed dissatisfaction with the sessions court’s decision to spare him the death sentence. The matter is scheduled for hearing on January 27.
CBI counsel Rajdeep Majumder argued that the state was not authorized to file appeals in cases investigated by central agencies, stressing that only the Union government has the authority to do so.
In response, Bengal’s Advocate General Kishore Datta contended that the case was initially investigated by the Kolkata Police before being handed over to the CBI, making the state’s appeal admissible.
The trial court’s 172-page judgment reveals that the CBI’s investigation into the case is still ongoing. Judge Anirban Das noted in his order: “In this case, a chargesheet was submitted only for the offence of rape and murder of the victim, and the actual offender was placed before this court for trial. It does not mean that the entire investigation process came to an end.”
