A division bench of the Calcutta High Court has directed the West Bengal health department to instruct Dr Sandip Ghosh to immediately go on voluntary leave, failing which the court will give its direction. The court set 3 pm today as the deadline. Dr Sandip Ghosh is the erstwhile principal of R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital and the current principal of Calcutta National Medical College & Hospital. The division bench of Chief Justice T.S Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya also set the deadline for Ghosh to apply for the voluntary leave. The Court was acting on the public interest litigation filed on the alleged rape and murder of a woman junior doctor last week.

The division bench also asked the state government to submit the case diary in the matter by this afternoon.

Questioning the role of Dr Ghosh in the entire matter, the counsel for the petitioners and CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya said, on Monday morning, Dr Ghosh announced his resignation from state government medical services and the same evening he was appointed as the head of another prime medical institute. At this argument, the Chief Justice also expressed wonder on how one could be awarded within just 12 hours.

The Chief Justice also made an observation that it was unfortunate that the protest demonstration by the junior doctors over the tragedy was spreading across the country and patients are the ultimate sufferers.

In the counter argument, the state government counsel said, the investigating team of Kolkata Police is ready to submit a report on the progress of the investigation.