CBI arrests ex-RG Kar Hospital principal Sandip Ghosh over 'financial irregularities'

Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday arrested Dr Sandip Ghosh, who was the principal of the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata when one of its postgraduate trainee doctors was raped and murdered early on August 9.

Dr Ghosh is the first person to be arrested by the CBI after the agency started probing both the rape and murder of the 31-year-old doctor as well as the allegations of rampant corruption and irregularities at the RGKMCH, particularly during his tenure as an orthopacedic surgeon. His security guard and two traders, who supplied medicines and other materials to the RGKMCH, were also picked up by the CBI.

The Kolkata Police earlier arrested Sanjay Roy, one of its own civic volunteers or contractual employees, for raping and murdering the 31-year-old doctor. He was also handed over to the CBI later.

The probe agency’s Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested Dr Ghosh for financial misconduct after he was summoned to its regional office at the Nizam Palace in Kolkata on Monday.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) alleged that Dr Ghosh had enjoyed the patronage of the top brass of the ruling Trinamool Congress and that was why Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government had looked the other way when he continued with his financial misconduct at the RGKMCH in Kolkata.

The Trinamool Congress, however, dismissed the allegation with the party’s general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on August 28 even raising the question of why the CBI had not yet arrested Dr Ghosh.

Had the Swashthya Bhavan (the Department of Health and Family Welfare of the West Bengal government) acted on the allegations against Dr Ghosh, the party would not have to experience embarrassment, Kunal Ghosh, a senior leader of the TMC, posted on X after the former principal of the RGKMCH was arrested.

The CBI officials started questioning him on August 16 – just three days after the Calcutta High Court asked the central agency to take over the probe into the rape and murder of the doctor at the RGKMCH from Kolkata Police.

He was questioned for 10-12 hours almost every day, except on August 25, when the agency officials raided his residence, and during the last weekend. A polygraph test was also conducted on him to ascertain the veracity of his replies during interrogation.

The agency raided Dr Ghosh’s residence and several other locations in and around the city on August 25, two days after the High Court asked it to take over the probe into the allegations of financial misconduct at the RGKMCH too.

He was appointed as the principal of the RGKMCH in 2021.

Dr Ghosh came under scanner after the rape and murder of the junior doctor triggered widespread outrage, with her colleagues resorting to a ‘cease work’ protest alleging a cover-up attempt by the RGKMCH authorities and the Kolkata Police. The protesting junior doctors then RGKMCH principal allegedly made another official of the institution call the parents of the deceased and inform them that their daughter had died by suicide. The outrage also brought to the fore the alleged corruption and financial irregularities at the medical college and hospital, particularly during the tenure of Dr Ghosh as principal.

Dr Ghosh resigned as the principal of the RGKMCH on August 12 in the wake of the widespread protest by the colleagues of the deceased doctors. But, just a few hours later, he was appointed as the principal of Calcutta National Medical College, where the students did not allow him to take over. The Calcutta High Court later asked him to go on long leave.

Dr Akhtar Ali, a former deputy superintendent of the RGKMCH, had moved the Calcutta High Court, seeking an investigation by the Directorate of Enforcement of the Union Ministry of Finance into the allegations of corruption and irregularities at the 138-year-old institution. Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj of the High Court on August 23 ordered the CBI to take over the probe from the Special Investigation Team, which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government had constituted in the wake of the allegations by protesting doctors against Dr Ghosh and his close associates.