Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of RG Kar Medical College & Hospital, suffered back-to-back setbacks, first at a single bench and then at a division bench led by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, at the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday. He was pleading to delay the charge-framing process against him in the financial irregularities case linked to the institution.
Ghosh has been named as an accused in the case, which is under investigation by the CBI following the death of a trainee doctor at RG Kar. Last week, Justice Tirthankar Ghosh of the Calcutta High Court directed that the charge-framing process commence by February 6.
The former RG Kar principal first approached the single bench of Justice Ghosh on Wednesday where his lawyers unsuccessfully prayed for an extension of the deadline for framing of charges, citing the need to review over 10,000 pages of documents submitted by the CBI.
The single bench upheld its previous order without modification and directed Ghosh to present his appeal before the lower court handling the charge-framing process. It also asked him to cooperate in the judicial process there.
Ghosh then turned to a division bench led by the chief justice. His lawyers contended that the single bench had dismissed their plea without adequately considering their arguments.
Chief Justice Sivagnanam ordered that the case be heard in the bench of Justice Ghosh, who rejected Ghosh's appeal once again, raising questions about the admissibility of the case.
It remains to be seen now whether the charge-framing process will commence on Thursday at the Alipore district & sessions court in Kolkata where the CBI faced strong criticism last week for delays in submitting essential documents related to the RG Kar financial irregularities case.
Despite filing a chargesheet in November 2024 and receiving multiple court directives, the agency repeatedly postponed the submission of the required documents.
