Cal HC admits CBI appeal for Sanjoy Roy’s death penalty

Kolkata: Calling for the trial court records, Calcutta High Court on Friday admitted the appeal of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for death sentence of the RG Kar rape and murder accused, Sanjoy Roy while nixing the state government’s plea on grounds that Centre is the appropriate authority as the probe was conducted by the Central agency.

The bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi arrived at the above conclusion by reasoning that the words “save as otherwise”, provided in sub-section (2) of Section 418 of BNSS, clarifies that in cases where a Central agency has conducted the probe, “the state government cannot issue such directions so long as the Central government or the CBI is willing to do so.”

Advocate General (AG) Kishore Datta, representing state, had argued that the amendment of CrPC to include the word ‘also’ under Section 377(2) unambiguously indicates that the legislature intended to empower both the state government as well as Central government to issue directions for presentation of an appeal against inadequate sentence.

The court observed that the object and reason for amendment of Section 377 “merely empowers the two agencies to direct presentation of an appeal. It does not specify that both can issue such direction simultaneously”.

Such a provision is present lest in the event of some exigency one agency fails and neglects to issue such directions, the court said.

The court was also dealing with the issue of whether CBI’s appeal filed through the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) is valid.

The court found no infirmity in the appointment of the advocate who presented the appeal, as SPP, by the CBI.

Observing that the appeal is required to be disposed of within a period of six months from the date of filing, the court directed that paper books be prepared within two weeks from the date of receipt of trial court records.