R.G. Kar case: Trial to start in special Kolkata court today

The trial in the rape and murder of a woman junior doctor of the R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in West Bengal in August will start at a special court on Monday, 11 November.

The process of framing of charge in the matter against the "sole prime accused", civic volunteer Sanjay Roy, was completed on 4 November following which Monday was scheduled for the date of the beginning of the trial process.

The trial will be conducted on a fast-track and daily basis.

It will start 94 days after the body of the junior doctor was discovered at a seminar hall within the R.G. Kar premises on the morning of 9 August.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed its first charge sheet in the matter 35 days before the beginning of the trial process. In the first charge sheet, Roy was identified as the “sole prime accused” in the rape and murder crime.

Recently, there was a verbal appeal in the Supreme Court, as it heard its suo motu case relating to the case, for shifting the trial process to any court outside West Bengal. However, the plea was turned down by the outgoing Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud.

On Saturday, leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari too raised the demand for shifting the trial outside West Bengal, claiming that justice will never be achieved in the case with chief minister Mamata Banerjee remaining in power in the state.

Recently, Roy has claimed that he neither committed the rape nor the murder and he was being falsely implicated by the government. Pointing his finger at the Kolkata Police, where he was attached to as a civic volunteer, Roy also claimed he had been threatened by his own departmental colleagues to remain silent in the matter.