Kolkata: The Supreme Court, Friday, will hear the petition filed by Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital, challenging the Calcutta High Court order of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the financial irregularities at the hospital.
On August 23, Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj directed the CBI to take charge of the investigation into the alleged financial irregularities at R.G. Kar during the tenure of Ghosh as the former principal.
Acting on a petition by the whistleblower, Akhtar Ali, who is a former deputy medical superintendent of R.G. Kar, Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj also directed that CBI inquiry on the financial irregularity will be court-monitored.
On the same afternoon, Ghosh approached Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya challenging the single-judge bench order.
Ghosh also sought a fast-track hearing in this matter. However, the division bench advised him to get a copy of the single-judge bench order first.
However, instead of approaching the division bench again with the single-judge bench order copy Ghosh chose to move to the Supreme Court directly Wednesday.
On August 25, CBI officials conducted raid and search operations at multiple locations in Kolkata, including the residence of Ghosh in connection with the financial irregularities case.
On September 2 evening, the officers of CBI’s economic offence wing took Ghosh and three others into custody. On September 3, a special court in Kolkata remanded the four accused, including Ghosh to CBI custody for eight days.
There had been several complaints about financial irregularities at R.G. Kar when Ghosh was at the helm of affairs there as the principal. The charges include tendering of different contracts to private and outsourced parties of his confidence without getting the necessary approval from the state health department and the college council, getting the infrastructure-related task of the hospital done by private outsourced entities or individuals instead of following the standard practice of getting them done by the state public works department (PWD) and selling biomedical wastes of the hospital, including organs of the unidentified bodies coming to the hospital mortuary for post-mortem purposes, outside.
