RG Kar rape & murder case: Court rejects plea of victim's parents to survey crime scene

Kolkata, July 9 (IANS) A lower court in Kolkata on Wednesday rejected a petition by the parents of the R.G Kar rape and murder victim to survey the scene of the crime.

Rejecting the application of the victim’s parents, the judge of the lower court observed that allowing the late woman doctor's parents to survey the scene of the crime would mean allowing a parallel investigation in the matter.

He observed that because of that reason, no lower court was in a position to approve such a petition.

However, the judge of the lower court also said that the parents of the victim could approach a higher court with the same plea since they would have the authority to approve such petitions.

The victim’s parents initially approached a single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court for permission to survey the scene of the crime. At that time the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also informed the High Court that their Investigating Officers did not have any objection to the parents visiting the crime scene.

However, the single-judge Bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh advised the victim’s parents to first approach the same trial court in Kolkata in the matter, which had in January this year sentenced the sole convict in the crime, civic volunteer Sanjay Roy, to life imprisonment.

During the successive hearings in the matter of permission to survey the scene of crime, the West Bengal government counsel objected to the proposal.

Objections in the matter were also raised by the counsel of the former principal of R.G. Kar, Sandip Ghosh and the former officer-incharge of Tala Police Station Abhijit Mondal station, who were accused of tampering with and altering the evidence in the case.

Finally, on Wednesday, the trial court rejected the plea of the victim’s parents and the judge of the trial court also questioned why the CBI, as the sole investigating agency in the case, did not object to their plea.

--IANS

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