The state government confirmed on Wednesday that it had received a CBI application seeking sanction to prosecute government officials Sandip Ghosh and Asish Pandey for alleged financial irregularities at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

A senior official at Nabanna said they have got “voluminous documents” which have been sent to “legal officers” for detailed scrutiny, after which “necessary steps” would be taken.

“According to the West Bengal Service Rules, if allegations of a criminal offence while discharge of official duty arise against a government official, the investigating agency has to seek sanction from the appointing body to prosecute that person,” the official said.

“There is a due process. The state will be able to respond once the scrutiny is over.”

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the agency had sought the sanction on November 27, two days before submitting a chargesheet in a lower court in Calcutta.

The court has yet to take cognisance of the chargesheet as the state sanction is pending.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the state to expeditiously process the request for sanction to prosecute Ghosh, a former principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, and Pandey, a former RG Kar house staff member.

It was on Ghosh’s watch that a junior doctor was raped and murdered at RG Kar on August 9.

The central agency has brought charges of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and use of forged documents against Ghosh and Pandey. They have also been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

According to Section 218 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), the state will have to respond within 120 days of the date of receipt of the application, failing which the sanction would be deemed to have been accorded.

A senior bureaucrat in Calcutta said: “If the prayer is rejected, the state will have to justify the decision with proof. This means the state will have to prove that the CBI investigation was inappropriate or faulty and that there is no reason to prosecute the official.”

Before BNSS, the CrPC had a similar procedure for prosecuting a government official. However, the relevant CrPC section had imposed no time limit for granting or refusing the sanction.

The CBI had on November 29 submitted an 80-page chargesheet in court against Ghosh, Pandey, Afsar Ali Khan, who was Ghosh’s guard when he was the RG Kar principal, and two vendors named Sumon Hazra and Biplav Singha.

The agency is probing allegations, mostly against Ghosh, of inflated billing and granting favours to a set of vendors to run cafeterias and canteens in the hospital compound.

Ghosh has also been accused of being involved in selling unclaimed bodies and biomedical waste.

According to a complaint, Ghosh had granted contracts to vendors of his choice without following the protocol.

Nepotism in selecting vendors, involving “third parties” for civil and electrical work instead of engaging the PWD, spending Covid funds to modernise his office and setting up a gym, and illegally selling “used hazardous biomedical waste” are some of the allegations against Ghosh.