A Central Bureau of Investigation lawyer on Friday was around 50 minutes late for the bail hearing of the main accused Sanjay Roy in the case of rape and murder of a young trainee doctor in Kolkata's R G Kar hospital, according to a report in The Times of India.
A Hindustan Times report states that the CBI's Investigating Officer (IO) was also absent during the hearing.
Additional chief judicial magistrate Pamela Gupta chided the CBI for its lackadaisical approach. "If the lawyer is not present, he (Roy) should be granted bail," Gupta remarked.
"This shows a very lethargic approach by the CBI. It's highly unfortunate,” the magistrate added.
Around 4:20 pm, the judge asked the CBI officer to call the CBI lawyer. "It is 4.20 pm now. This is very unfortunate," ToI quoted the judge as saying.
An assistant investigating officer left the courtroom to make a call and returned about 15 minutes later and informed the court that the lawyer was on the way.
Lawyer Dipak Poria reached the courtroom at about 5:00 pm. The defence lawyer Kavita Sarkar then asked him why the CBI wasn't being represented by the counsel who attended the August 23 hearing.
Poria replied to Sarkar's question by saying that he was CBI's "full-time lawyer" and opposed Roy's bail plea.
Sarkar had argued for Roy's bail on the ground that he didn't have any prior criminal records or a criminal case pending against him. She further added that the agency was yet to reveal any evidence against him in the court.
The report adds that the second CBI remand plea reiterates Roy as the only suspect in the case.
"The relevant DNA report has been sent to AIIMS (Delhi) for an opinion, We have not concluded anything so far. The samples were collected by police and later given to us. The victim was cremated before we took over the probe and we don't have any option but to depend on what police gave us," the publication quoted a CBI officer as saying.
Roy was remanded to judicial custody till September 20 by Magistrate Gupta.