The Supreme Court on Tuesday raised objections to the state’s plans to recruit a contractual force to bolster security at RG Kar and other medical college hospitals where young people join to pursue medicine straight after Class XII.

Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, during the hearing, said government medical colleges involve “young people” in the age group of 18 to 23 who are “particularly vulnerable and have to be protected”.

“These are young girls who are straight out of standard XII who are going to be joining for four-and-a-half or five years. Therefore, dealing with young people in the age group of 18 to 23. They are particularly vulnerable and they have to be protected,” he said.

Sources in the state home department said the security personnel under the Rattirer Sathi (Friends of the Night) project will be drawn from “registered” security agencies that have a “clean image”.

“The government would approach the security agencies for a statement of the antecedents of the personnel. In addition, there will be a security audit that will map vulnerable points inside the colleges before deploying the personnel,” the source said.

Before deployment, senior IPS officers will conduct “seven to 15 days” of training of the personnel, the source said.

These personnel already have previous experience of being on duty at vital installations, for example malls, the source said.

“The training consists of identifying people and frisking without being indecent. They have to be trained to be polite but firm. They will be trained in understanding what all they have to be vigilant about when on night duty,” the source said.

“There will be an alarm system in the departmental wards so that there is an immediate intimation in case of any untoward incident,” the source said.

The chief justice said that the accused in the rape and murder of the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital was “drawn from the volunteer force”.

“These contractual people will be trained for seven days and then they will be walking all around in the hospital. What is the protection which these young doctors have, particularly the women doctors, about these contractual staff walking around in the night in the hospital?” the chief justice asked.

“Let’s face it. The crime is alleged to have been carried out by a volunteer who was posted at the hospital,” he said.

The chief justice said the junior doctors had “no great pleasure” in abstaining from work.

“They are abstaining from work now, as we see. Having these contractual people there, they will be having a new source of completely insecure premises. Who are these people who are going to be joining at a contractual level?”

The concerns of young people have to be assuaged, the chief justice said.

“As we said, in other hospitals you will not have say 18-19 year olds, young, almost like children, they are beyond 18 that is the only thing. These are very young doctors, young interns, they are all young students. They are straight out of their homes. They are coming from different parts of West Bengal. We have to assuage their concerns, the concerns of their parents,” he said.

The chief justice said the government has to talk to the junior doctors and tell them about the verification process the government is following.

“They are in a situation where there is a lack of security for the doctors. The way to do it is really to have regular police personnel at least in these... government medical colleges and hospitals...” he said.

During the hearing, the chief justice wanted to know from the state’s counsel what steps had been taken on the ground to improve the safety and security at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

For the state, Kapil Sibal told the court that the concurrence of the state finance department had been obtained for the engagement of an additional 1,514 security personnel under the Rattirer Sathi programme for all medical colleges and hospitals.

“There are already 232 existing security guards and an additional 85 security personnel have been designated afresh for RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. Three companies of CISF are already deployed at RG Kar,” Sibal said.