In its order, the court has ratcheted up the pressure on the probe, tasking the CBI with looking into claims that parts of the case were hushed up. It’s a move to address the kind of credibility issues that have been a thorn for the victims’ family and the medical community alike.
What the bench wants is a straight answer: were key steps in the investigation botched? Was evidence put at risk? The June 25 deadline is a clear sign the court is after some accountability.
What the court has ordered
Heading up this fresh look will be a three-man team from the CBI, led by the joint director (east). The other two are to be named in the next 48 hours.
The scope of the work is very much defined. The SIT has to piece together what happened from the moment the trainee doctor was having dinner at the college on the night of the incident to her cremation the next day. Given the social weight of the case, the court has asked for a full accounting when it comes back before them on the 25th.
Timeline shaping the new probe
Then there is the matter of Sanjay Roy, the civic volunteer and main accused. He was found guilty on January 18, 2025, and made to do life on the 20th. By the 24th, the CBI was in court asking for the death penalty. Roy, for his part, put in an appeal for acquittal on July 9.
It all goes back to August 9, 2024, when the post-graduate on duty was raped and killed on the hospital grounds. The High Court gave the file to the CBI four days later. The victim’s parents, not satisfied, called for a new inquiry in late December.
The makeup of the bench has seen some shuffling over time. Justice Tirthankar Ghosh stepped aside in late August; a division of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md. Shabbar Rashidi let the case go in March 2026. This latest word comes from Justices Shampa Sarkar and Tirthankar Ghosh.
Claims under scrutiny and implications
You can see why the court is being so specific. There are charges of evidence being destroyed and the incident being minimised in the days after. The parents say there was more than one person in on it, and the SIT will have to put that to the test.
According to the court, the SIT will focus on:
– Events from dinner to cremation
– Possible evidence destruction
– Any attempt to downplay the crime
– Preparing a comprehensive status report by June 25
Administrative fallout beyond the courtroom
This order is only five days old since the Suvendu Adhikari government put the brakes on three top IPS officers for their part in the early days of the probe. It shows how the case has grown well past a simple conviction.
Adhikari has made it known that former Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal, as well as ex-deputy commissioners Indira Mukherjee and Abhishek Gupta, are in hot water. They are accused of everything from running an unauthorised presser to trying to buy off the parents with a bribe.
The chief minister has been at pains to say the state will keep out of the CBI’s way now and only concern itself with what the Kolkata Police did before they ceded control. It’s a way of minding the court while putting some distance between the government and the original handling of the case.
What happens next
So the CBI has 48 hours to put the SIT in place and a month to make its report. The High Court will be in session on the 25th to see where things stand.
There are still other matters in the pipeline. The CBI’s push for the death penalty and Roy’s counter-appeal are yet to be decided. And in the meantime, you have a sense of a wider conspiracy and a state-led hush job in the air, fuelled by what is being said in court and in the streets by doctors across the country.
