Justice For An Angel

By Sujit Bhar

The issue of the horrific rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee lady doctor early on August 9 at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has been dissected a million ways by the police, the state administration, by parties in Opposition and on social media, many through fake videos/audios. One person has been arrested and the principal of the institution, Sandip Ghosh, has been interrogated umpteen times, though the story remains a livewire.

The case became so contentious that the Calcutta High Court, on the very first day of hearing before the bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice H Bhattacharyya, took important steps. First, it ordered the hospital’s controversial principal Ghosh—he had been transferred as principal of another important hospital in Kolkata, four hours after he had submitted his resignation at the former college—to go on long leave.

Then, with the parents of the deceased demanding an independent probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the bench agreed and despite state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee having already said that she would transfer the case to the CBI if the Kolkata Police failed, transferred the case to the central agency with immediate effect.

The Supreme Court, thereafter, made a bold step of taking suo motu cognisance of the incident and said that it would like to intervene into the process. In a week, it had two hearings and made important observations and issued critical orders. The first was to form a National Task Force (NTF), comprising leading doctors, to look into all grievances of government hospital doctors across the country. The second was an order to the state of West Bengal, not to use coercive action against peaceful protesters. The third was an assurance to doctors that actions already taken or notified against them by the state or states will not be allowed.

Finally, and most importantly, the top court asked all striking doctors to immediately report back to work.

Somehow, the Supreme Court managed to do in two sittings what Kolkata Police, the CBI and even the Calcutta High Court somewhat failed to do: apply a balm to cool nerves and bring in a sense of confidence among doctors, who now feel they have been heard and are being looked after. The doctors returned to work, to the relief of thousands of patients.

The Supreme Court’s confidence-boosting action and assurance was something almost out of the blue, but that is possibly the strength of a democracy and a section of India’s rickety justice system that still works and still acknowledges the plight of the ordinary people. The Court has been able to instil in the several parties which have locked horns over this gruesome rape and murder that justice is being seen to be done.

The apex court also made it clear that the case has to be dealt as a criminal case and that issues should not be politicised. This emanated from an in-court tussle between Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and West Bengal counsel, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, in which the former alleged that a state minister had said that protesting doctors’ fingers should be “chopped off” (the minister had actually said fingers should be broken), while the latter countered by saying that BJP legislator Suvendu Adhikari had talked about bouts of “shooting”.

The next hearing is on September 5.

The First Hearing

On the first hearing at the top court, the bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra made the special decision of setting up the NTF of doctors on hospital safety. The NTF has been asked to file an interim report within three weeks. The NTF has to submit its final report within two months.

The SC-appointed task force comprises Surgeon Vice Admiral R Sarin; Dr D Nageshwar Reddy; Dr M Shreenivas; Dr Pratima Murty; Dr Goverdhan Dutt Puri; Dr Saumitra Rawat; Prof Anita Saxena, Head Cardiology, AIIMS Delhi; Prof Pallavi Sapre, Dean Grant Medical College Mumbai; and Dr Padma Srivastava, Neurology department, AIIMS.

The NTF will also have ex-officio members in the Union cabinet secretary, Union home secretary, Union health secretary, the chairperson of National Medical Commission, and the president of the National Board of Examiners.

On the first day itself, the Court also came down heavily on the state government and the hospital administration for delaying the filing of the FIR. Then the Court made it clear that the state government must not use force to suppress those protesting peacefully.

The Second Hearing

On the second hearing, on August 22, the Court doubled down on the 14-hour delay in lodging of an FIR. Justice Pardiwala, in particular, was immensely miffed at the way the Unnatural Death case was registered after the autopsy had been completed. “In my 30 years of experience I have never seen a case like this,” said the judge to counsel Sibal, who was visibly at a loss of words to explain the situation. Sadly enough, the state government’s 21-member lawyers’ team seemed to have failed to do its homework.

The Court has a very special agenda in taking up this case, and it was clear when it said: “If women cannot go to work and be safe, we are denying them the basic right to equality. We have to do something.” Initially, the Court had said that it could not wait for another rape to happen to finally act.

Another mention in the Court was about a plea placed by a number of junior doctors, who were being threatened with bodily harm and were scared to return to work. The names of the applicants have been kept a secret (plea in a sealed envelope), and Justice Chandrachud directed officials to ensure the safety of protesting medicos as they return to work.

The Court said: “Doctors are willing to go back to work. However, it is submitted that state governments may take some safety measures for the doctors… We direct that the secretary of the Union Ministry of Health engage with the Chief Secretaries of the State and Director General of Police to ensure the safety. The exercise must be completed in one week and the states shall take appropriate actions within a period of two weeks.”

As of now, the apex court has ordered that the central Industrial Security Force (CISF) take over security of the hospital and two companies of the central force are already in place. The hospital was earlier under the control of the Calcutta Police.

Details of Autopsy Report

The autopsy report of the lady doctor revealed some startling details. They are as follows:

• The body of the doctor sustained over 14 injuries, across her head, face, neck, arms and genitals.
• The report confirmed evidence of forceful penetration, indicating sexual assault.
• The cause of death was determined to be “manual strangulation associated with smothering”.
• The report confirmed that the manner of death was ruled as homicide.
• The report mentioned the presence of a “white, thick, viscid liquid” in the victim’s genitalia.
• The report also observed haemorrhaging in the lungs and blood clots throughout the body.
• The autopsy found no signs of fractures, negating rumours that her neck and pelvic bone were broken.
• Samples of blood and other bodily fluids were sent for further analysis.
• The autopsy also seemingly confirmed that a brutal blow caused shards of glass from her spectacles to break and enter her eyes. Only problem here is, does anybody generally sleep with his/her glasses on?

The different action hotspots

It has to be understood that several lines of action are happening around this supremely contentious case. These are:

• The first, of course, is the security system available to lady doctors and interns who spend nights at the hospital. The case has highlighted the complete lack of this facility in at least that particular hospital and in all hospitals in general. This has come to light before, when doctors have protested harassment at the hands of patient parties. Not much has been done.
• The second is about the hospital authorities, including the controversial principal, Dr Sandip Ghosh. Allegations of maltreatment of students, threats issued, major underhand financial dealings have been levelled against him, and these will take time to prove. It is also strange that the PWD started breaking down a room adjacent to the seminar room, where the lady doctor’s dead body was found, immediately after the incident.
• The third is about the state government, and about how much influence this principal has within the state power structure that he could be reinstated within four hours of resigning his post as principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, as principal of another prestigious college (The National Medical College) of the city.
• The fourth is about Calcutta Police. Their failures are immense. They failed to properly secure the hospital after the incident, resulting in a mob which ransacked the emergency wards and other places on the night of August 14. It has been claimed, though, that the Place of Occurrence (PO) is intact. The top court also found discrepancies in the post mortem time and the Unnatural Death case registration time, as well as in the time of filing an FIR. Also, the parents of the doctor were first told that it was a case of suicide (before even the post mortem had taken place) and then they were made to wait three hours before they could even look at the body of their daughter. Then, of course, the police had lathicharged a peaceful protest of two major football club members. The only thing that police did was to arrest a civic worker, Sanjay Roy, within 24 hours of the incident, following CCTV footage study.
• The fifth is about the CBI, which had taken over the case as per the Calcutta High Court’s orders. As of writing this, the CBI has interrogated Dr Sandip Ghosh, for over 60 hours, with no sign of any breakthrough and no arrest. They presented a status report to the top court on August 22 as required (as did the Special task Force, constituted by the state government, almost as an afterthought), the details of which are not known. The CBI’s track record has been so dismal that any breakthrough by this agency seems distant.
• The sixth is about the Calcutta High Court order of involving the CBI on the very first day of hearing. While the Court ordered what it thought was the best option, some politicians see a red flag in what they think was a “great hurry”. Thereafter, the Supreme Court took suo motu action, though the Calcutta High Court remains in charge of the main investigation.
• The seventh will have to be the general outpouring of grief and spontaneous protests across the city, the state, around the country and even abroad. Doctors went on strike, virtually paralysing the health system of the state and of many other government hospitals across the country.