Delay, dereliction of duty, suppression, lying, and brazenness about rule violations.

The additional district and sessions judge, Sealdah, Anirban Das, has in his judgment castigated the roles of the police and RG Kar Medical College and Hospital authorities in their handling of the August 9 rape and murder of an on-duty junior doctor.

While the judgment says the police’s failures and omissions “did not affect the case of prosecution in any manner”, instances of barefaced negligence do hurt the force’s credibility.

Asked about the lapses and the court’s sharp comments, many in the police cited “practical problems” but some admitted that many of the “mistakes” could have been avoided.

What the court said and how the government agencies reacted:

General diary delay

9.45am: Doctor found dead at RG Kar.

10.10am: Tala police station receives the information.

11.30pm: A sub-inspector makes a general diary entry based on the information received at 10.10am, although he was not present at the station when the information arrived.

The judgment excoriates the sub-inspector who told the court nonchalantly that the general diary entry was made 13 hours after the police station learned about the junior doctor’s death. The officer added that he had made the entry himself although he was not at the police station when the information arrived.

The judgment, now in the public domain, regrets that many members of the police fail to follow rules, sometimes at the risk of jeopardising a probe, not to mention the credibility of the force.

Several officers — retired and serving — told The Telegraph that a few hours’ delay in making a general diary entry was nothing new, and not necessarily a lapse.

When “big incidents” happen, the on-duty cops first rush to the scene, handle the situation and then write down the details of what they had done after returning to the station, often several hours later.

“There is nothing wrong with that. But what is wrong is making a general diary entry based on information that arrived when the officer was not present at the police station,” a retired assistant commissioner said.

Blasé about mistakes

“This evidence of one SI of police is an eye-opener that police stations are treating the cases in a very indifferent manner. It is also shocking that the concerned SI did not hesitate to say such illegal acts standing in the witness box,” the judge wrote.

The judgment mentions the officer’s deposition where he said that space had been left blank so that a general diary entry could be made later. Such antics do leave scope for manipulation.

That the sub-inspector brazenly told the court how he had made a general diary entry on the basis of information received when he was not present shows that he thought this was par for the course, the judgment notes.

“We do not encourage such practices. It is unfortunate,” a senior police officer at Lalbazar said.

Phone lapse

The judgment refers to the deposition of an officer who said she took the phone of accused Sanjay Roy (before his arrest), returned it to him and seized it again after his arrest.

“It is (a) fact that from the evidence it was not established that she had done it with any ulterior motive or that she had tampered the data of the mobile of the accused,” the judgment says.

Senior officers said a suspect’s mobile phone can be inspected even without him or her being arrested but the phone cannot be left “unattended” — meaning, in this instance, given back to the accused before the probe is complete. It must be entered in the records as “personal property” and kept in the custody of the police station’s malkhana.

The officer’s defence that the accused was in custody (detention) all through the seizure, return and re-seizure did not go down well with the court.

“In a very peculiar manner by placing a very weak explanation she stated that the mobile was returned to the accused and then at the time of his arrest, the same was seized from him. It was her evidence that during this entire period the accused was under detention with the Kolkata Police,” the judgment says.

“It is her good luck that the defence did not challenge her by placing some twisted questions but she failed to lead the investigation properly,” the judgment says.

Lie to parents

The judgment flags how an assistant superintendent (non-medical) from RG Kar Hospital told the victim’s parents, after the discovery of the body, that the junior doctor had committed suicide.

According to the judgment, it was clear by then that she had been murdered and possibly subjected to sexual assault.

“There is no doubt to consider that from the end of any authority, efforts were made to show the death as a suicidal one so that the hospital authority would not face any consequences,” the judgment says.

A senior official of a medical college said there was no standard procedure for informing an employee’s family about his or her death. “There is nothing in black and white. One should be transparent, sensitive and truthful,” the official said.

“A lot of factors like the health condition of the parents should be considered. But at no cost should a lie be told.”

Suppression

“It is very much clear that the then Principal and the MSVP (medical superintendent-cum-vice-principal) of RG Kar Hospital were very much aware on getting the intimation from the PW-6 that the victim was raped and murdered inside the hospital premises while she was on duty,” the judgment says.

PW-6 refers to Dr Sumit Roy Tapadar, associate professor of respiratory medicine at RG Kar.

“It is not clear to me as to why the then Principal or the MSVP did not send any official intimation to the police authority about such unnatural death,” the judgment says.

“It is (a) fact that without post-mortem, the cause of death could not be ascertained but being the doctors why they did not consider that the said death was an unnatural one and it was obviously, the duty of the hospital authority to intimate the police.

“From the evidence as well as the documents proved in this case, it appears that no such intimation was sent to the police authority.”

The information sent to the police at 10.10am came from an unknown caller. The first formal complaint was later lodged by the victim’s parents.

“The said act of the administrative head of the concerned hospital creates a shadow of doubt about the fact and it seems that they wanted to suppress anything and that there was dereliction of duty on their part,” the judgment says.

A health department official said: “The matter is under probe. The CBI is probing the role of the then principal.”

Additional reporting by Subhajoy Roy