Bengal govt moves Calcutta HC seeking death sentence for RG Kar rape-murder convict
The convict Sanjay Roy was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court in Kolkata on Monday in the August 2024 rape and murder of a post-graduate trainee doctor at the city’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital
Kolkata: The West Bengal government moved the Calcutta high court on Tuesday seeking capital punishment for Sanjay Roy, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court in Kolkata on Monday in the August 2024 rape and murder of a post-graduate trainee doctor at the city’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

“Advocate general Kishore Dutta brought up the matter before the division bench of justice Debangshu Basak and said the state wanted to file an appeal seeking capital punishment. Justice Basak permitted the state to challenge the order the Sealdah court passed on Monday,” a state government lawyer said requesting anonymity.
Roy, 34, a civic volunteer who worked for Kolkata police during the crime, was sentenced to jail for rest of life under sections 66 (rape), 64 (causing injury resulting in death) and 103 (1) (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) by Anirban Das, the additional district and sessions judge of the Sealdah court.
Minutes after the verdict, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said the punishment had disappointed her.
“I cannot comment on the court but I am not satisfied. The state government prayed for death sentence from the very beginning. We were all expecting death sentence,” Banerjee said. Later, on Monday evening, she wrote in a social media post that her government would move the high court seeking death sentence.
Banerjee was touring Malda district on Tuesday when the state moved the division bench.
Addressing a government event in Malda, the chief minister reiterated that the trial court’s refusal to treat the crime as “rarest of the rare” - a term the Central Bureau of Investigation used during trial to seek capital punishment - had shocked her.
“This is a rare, sensitive and very very heinous crime,” Banerjee said.
She also referred to the West Bengal legislative assembly passing the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2024, in September last year. The bill seeks changes in several sections of the BNS so that 10 or 20-year jail terms in rape, gangrape and murder cases are replaced with death penalty or imprisonment for remaining life of the convict.
Bengal governor C V Ananda Bose referred the Bill to President Droupadi Murmu four days after it was passed.
“Our Bill has provision for death sentence. They (Centre) have not cleared it till now. We want it to become a model before the nation,” Banerjee said in Malda.
Roy was arrested on August 10, a day after the crime, by Kolkata police and handed over to CBI following an order the Calcutta high court passed on August 13. The Chief Justice of India’s bench took over the hearing on September 20 through a suo motu petition amid nationwide protests. Roy pleaded innocence during trial and claimed to have been famed by Kolkata police.
The state’s decision to challenge the Sealdah court’s order triggered reactions in political circles and the 31-year-old victim’s family.
The victim’s father, who accused the CBI on Monday of not conducting a thorough investigation, said: “What did she (the chief minister) do when Kolkata’s former police commissioner allowed evidence to be tampered with? Didn’t she know that it would affect the verdict?”
On September 17 last year, the then Kolkata police commissioner Vineet Goyal was replaced by the chief minister after she met protesting junior doctors who sought his removal.
The medical fraternity and citizens who took to the streets in thousands over the past five months alleged that Roy was not the sole perpetrator. The victim’s parents repeatedly alleged that their 31-year-old daughter was the victim of a larger conspiracy hatched by influential people.
The ruling Trinamool Congress has been targeted by opposition parties since CBI has not yet framed charges against Dr Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of RG Kar Medical College, and Abhijit Mondal, the local Tala police station’s former officer-in-charge.
Both were arrested by CBI on September 14 and charged with tampering of evidence. Ghosh is also facing investigation in a separate case relating to financial corruption at the hospital. Both were granted bail on December 13 as CBI failed to file chargesheet in the stipulated 90 days.
Samik Bhattacharya, chief spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bengal unit, said: “The RG Kar Hospital incident was an institutional crime. Mamata Banerjee is trying to give it a political colour. The state won’t have a cakewalk at the high court. The appeal will have a boomerang effect. Just wait and watch.”
