West Bengal government appeals for death penalty in RG Kar rape and murder case

State seeks Calcutta High Court's permission to challenge Sealdah court's life sentence for convict Sanjay Roy in rape and murder case

Kolkata: The West Bengal government on Tuesday moved the Calcutta High Court to file an appeal seeking death penalty of the convict in the RG Kar hospital doctor’s rape and murder case and secured the court’s necessary permission.

The State government’s move comes in less than 24 hours after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced her intent to challenge before a higher court the order of Sealdah court that sentenced Sanjay Roy to life imprisonment until death in the case.

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Advocate General Kishor Datta moved a division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi on Tuesday morning, seeking the court’s permission to file the appeal challenging the order passed by Additional District and Sessions Judge in Sealdah, Anirban Das, on Monday.

“The government has moved the high court and secured the court’s leave to file the appeal,” an official said.

High court sources maintained that the judicial process pertaining to the case could start this week itself if the due process of filing the appeal was completed by the end of the day on Tuesday.

The Sealdah court sentenced Roy to life imprisonment until death after he was convicted of raping and murdering the on-duty doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, rejecting demands for the death penalty saying it was not a “rarest of the rare” crime.

Holding that “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”, Das awarded rigorous imprisonment to Roy, the sole convict in the case, for the remainder of his natural life.

The judge also stated in his order that “our duty is not to match brutality with brutality, but to elevate humanity through wisdom, 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.”

Maintaining that the case doesn’t meet the stringent criteria drawn from established guidelines of previous Apex Court judgments for imposing death penalty, the trial court stopped short of classifying the crime as “rarest of the rare”.

“The Supreme Court has consistently emphasised that the death penalty should be used only in exceptional circumstances where the collective conscience of the community is so shocked that it expects the holders of judicial power to inflict the death penalty,” Das stated in his order while highlighting that “it is crucial to note that there is no evidence of prior criminal behaviour or misconduct by the convict”.