CBI Moves Cal HC Demanding Death Penalty For RG Kar Convict Sanjay Roy

In less than 48 hours since the verdict, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday filed an appeal before the Calcutta High Court seeking death penalty for the sole convict Sanjay Roy. Sanjay was sentenced to life imprisonment by Sealdah trial court on Monday. While admitting the incident was inhuman and effects of what isn’t limited to the family alone, but Additional District and Sessions Judge Anirban Das didn’t call the case “rarest of rare” while denying the demand for death penalty from the CBI.

Bengal government of Mamata Banerjee was first to move to Calcutta High Court on Tuesday with an application challenging the trial court verdict. CBI had contested the move stating that since the investigation was with the CBI, the State did not have the locus-standi to move to the higher court. The CBI argued that only the victim’s family, the investigating agency, or the convict could appeal to a higher court. The state government, on the other hand, claimed that the incident took place inside a state government run hospital, and that law and order is a state subject.


The High Court has not dismissed the petition filed by the state government as yet but the Division Bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi, while hearing the arguments of the CBI and the state, has decided to hear the victim’s family and the convict Sanjoy Roy’s side before deciding whether to allow the potion of the state government.

After 66 days of trial, Sanjay Roy was convicted last Saturday and the quantum of punishment was announced on Monday. Both the CBI and the victim’s family had demanded death penalty for the convict claiming the case to be “rarest of rare”. While Sanjay Roy had cried innocence, his lawyer, however demanding any penalty apart from death penalty relying on previous Supreme Court verdicts that had commuted death sentences owing to the principles of reformative justice. The counsel of Roy had argued that death penalty can only be given if the scope for reformation and rehabilitation was exhausted.

“In the realm of modern justice, we must rise above the primitive instinct of "an eye for an eye" or “a tooth for a tooth” or “nail for a nail" or “a life for a life". Our duty is not to match brutality with brutality, but to elevate humanity through wis- dom, compassion and a deeper understanding of justice. The measure of a civilised society lies not in its ability to exact revenge, but in its capacity to reform, rehabilitate and ultimately to heal”, read the judgement.​