The CBI will file an appeal before the Calcutta high court seeking death sentence for Sanjay Roy, who was sentenced to "life imprisonment until death" by a Sealdah court in the rape-cum-murder case of an on-duty doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, officials said Wednesday.
The agency received legal advice suggesting that the case may be categorised as the "rarest of rare", deserving capital punishment, they said.
According to PTI, the CBI is likely to file the appeal against the Sealdah court order by Friday with detailed arguments in favour of capital punishment.
On Tuesday, Mamata Banerjee government moved the high court against the verdict. The court admitted the plea but Justice Debanshu Basak and Justice M.M. Shabbar Rashidi division bench asked the state’s counsel if the victim’s parents were informed about the state’s decision to challenge the verdict.
The state’s counsel answered in the negative.
The Telegraph Online reported Wednesday that the parents of the victim questioned the Bengal government’s move to appeal against the verdict of the trial court in the Calcutta high court within 24 hours of the sentence being pronounced.
“I don’t know why the state government is being so proactive in filing an appeal. When the investigation was going on they did nothing to support it,” said the victim’s father.
The victim’s father also repeated that the state hasn’t informed them. “We have not heard anything from anyone in this regard,” he said.
The agency's plea seeking death penalty for Roy was turned down by the trial court, where Additional District and Sessions Judge Anirban Das said that the crime did not fall under the "rarest of the rare" category.
"The CBI prayed for the death penalty. The defence lawyer prayed that a jail term be given instead of the death penalty. This crime does not fall under the 'rarest of the rare' category," the judge said on Monday while sentencing Roy.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee let her views about the sentence public both on Monday and Tuesday.
“You saw in the RG Kar case, we had said we want the death penalty,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday during a government event in Malda. “Those who commit such poishachik otyachar (demonic torture), if someone is danobik (monstrous), pashobik (bestial), can society be manobik (humane)? Society must be made more humane.”
“How can it be said in the judgment? A judgment I did not like. That it is not a rarest of the rare case?” Mamata asked.
The body of the post-graduate trainee doctor was found in the R.G. Kar Hospital's seminar room on August 9. The Kolkata Police arrested a civic volunteer the next day in this connection.
On August 13, the Calcutta High Court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the investigation, after expressing lack of satisfaction with the Kolkata Police.
On August 19, the Supreme Court took a suo motu case over the incident. In October, the CBI filed a charge sheet against accused Sanjay Roy, who was arrested by the Kolkata police.
