Plea before Calcutta High Court for FIR against former cop for disclosing RG Kar victim's name

The Calcutta High Court on Monday sought the State government's response to a plea seeking registration of case against former Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal for disclosing the name of the RG Kar Hospital rape-murder victim to the media.

A Bench led by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Bivas Pattanayak passed the order today.

"We have been told that a clarification was sought from the Supreme Court. As we note that the application is still pending, we have doubt in our mind whether we would be entitled to proceed with this matter independently, when the Supreme Court is seized of the matter. We say so because the Supreme Court has passed directions to remove the name and identity of the victim from the internet earlier. The question would be whether the allegation in the petition which was prior to the Supreme Court order would hold," the Court noted.

The Court has directed the State to file the affidavit by November 13, and listed the matter for hearing on November 14.

During the hearing, the Court observed that the Supreme Court had previously issued orders to protect the victim's name and identity from being published online.

It was also noted that a similar order was passed by the High Court prior to the hearing of the current writ petition.

A lawyer practicing at the Calcutta High Court sought the registration of an first information report (FIR) against Goyal for revealing the victim's identity.

Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani informed the Court that the Supreme Court, which is already hearing the RG Kar Hospital case, had clarified that this particular issue could be addressed by the High Court.

Jethmalani alleged that the offence committed by Goyal was criminal in nature, allowing the High Court to hear the matter independently.

Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy, representing Goyal, stated that the petitioners had served the supplementary affidavits on them with significant delay and, therefore, additional six weeks time would be needed to file a response.

Given that a similar matter is already slated before Supreme Court for hearing on October 15, the Court granted time to State to file the response.