Kolkata, Feb 7 (IANS): The Calcutta High Court on Friday said that the counsels of the accused in the case of multi-crore financial irregularities at state-run R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata will be getting ample time to study the charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter after collecting it from the central agency office by the weekend.
A division bench, headed by Justice Joymalya Bagchi, said that the counsel of the five accused in the case could visit the office of the CBI's Economic Offences Wing on February 8 and February 9 and collect all the charge sheet-related documents.
The matter will come up for hearing at the same division bench on February 11 and it is expected that during that hearing the date will be fixed for the beginning of the process of framing charges in the matter at a special court in Kolkata.
The division bench on Friday also directed that the counsel of the accused will have to inform the lower court about their collection of the charge sheet-related documents from the CBI office.
The CBI charge sheet names five individuals – former and controversial R.G. Kar Principal Sandip Ghosh, his assistant-cum-bodyguard Afsar Ali, private contractors Biplab Sinha and Suman Hazra, and junior doctor Ashish Pandey. All five are currently in judicial custody.
After February 6 was fixed as the date for the beginning of framing charges in the matter at the special court, Ghosh and others approached the Calcutta High Court with a petition seeking more time for the beginning of the process.
However, on January 31, a single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh rejected the plea. The counsel of the accused individuals filed a review petition at Justice Ghosh’s bench which was again rejected on February 5.
Thereafter, on February 6 morning, the counsel approached the division bench, headed by Justice Bagchi, challenging the rejection of the petition by the single-judge bench and it directed that more time in the matter should be given to the accused individuals.
The bench observed that they are not in favour of diluting the seriousness of the case by not allowing sufficient time to the accused to study the charges framed against them before beginning the framing of charges process.
However, the division bench, at the same time, made it clear that giving more time to the accused individuals to study the documents does not mean that the trial process in the matter will be unnecessarily prolonged.
The High Court bench also observed that if necessary, the high court might also supervise the trial process in the case at the special court.