RG Kar financial irregularities case: Trial court slaps show-cause notice on CBI

A trial court has slapped a show-cause on Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for procedural lapses in passing on information to the court about the West Bengal government's nod for framing charges and trial process against former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh in the case related to financial irregularities in the institution.

On January 28, the CBI informed Calcutta High Court's single-judge Bench of Tirthankar Ghosh about the clearance from the state government to start the charge-framing and trial process.

Now, the trial court has taken objection as to why the CBI has not informed the same court about the development.

It is learnt that the judge of the trial court has directed the central agency to give a written explanation for why the same court was not informed about it.

The CBI officials investigating the case received the no-objection certificate from the state government on the evening of January 27 and informed the Calcutta High Court about it the next day. On that day, CBI also submitted a report to the Calcutta High Court on the progress in the RG Kar financial irregularities case.

A single-judge Bench of the Calcutta HC directed officials to complete the framing of charges and begin the trial process within a week. Besides CBI, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is also conducting a parallel probe into the case.

While CBI started its investigation following an order by the Calcutta High Court, the ED made a suo motu entry to investigate the money laundering angle after filing an enforcement case information report (ECIR).

Altogether five persons, including Sandip Ghosh, his assistant-cum- bodyguard Afsar Ali, private contractors Biplab Sinha and Suman Hazra and a junior doctor Ashish Pandey, have been named by CBI and all are in judicial custody.

The main charges in the case include manipulation in the tendering process of RG Kar, getting infrastructure-related work done by private contractors bypassing the state Public Works Department against the hefty commission, smuggling of bio-medical wastes from the hospital outside and finally selling organs of the unidentified bodies sent to RG Kar morgue for post-mortem in the open market at premium prices.