RG Kar protest face hails HC judgment, says it vindicates claim on 'politically motivated' transfers

Kolkata, Sep 24 (PTI) Aniket Mahato, one of the prominent faces of a protest movement over the rape-murder of a postgraduate trainee at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital here, welcomed Calcutta High Court's direction to the West Bengal government to engage him at the same medical establishment as a senior resident in the Anaesthesiology Department.

Setting aside Mahato's deployment at Raiganj Medical College and Hospital as per a notification of May 27, 2025 as a senior resident, the court of Justice Biswajit Basu on Wednesday directed the state to engage him at R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in the Department of Anaesthesiology with immediate effect.

Mahato, while addressing a press conference, said that the judgment vindicated their claim that the decision to transfer him was "politically motivated".

"The high court rightly raised the issue as to why two people out of 871 had been picked up for transfer. Why were the SOPs violated? We had earlier pointed out that there was a lack of transparency, but the high-handed, arrogant administration was transgressing all limits in taking such a decision," he said.

Holding that the decision of the state to deploy Mahato at Raiganj Medical College and Hospital in Uttar Dinajpur district violates the principle of reasonableness, Justice Basu said that the state has committed a serious wrong, which demands intervention.

A prayer by the state's lawyer for a stay of operation of the order till October 7 for moving an appeal against the judgment was refused by Justice Basu.

Mahato said they had been waiting for four months, and the truth finally prevailed on Wednesday.

He said it was not only his win, but of all those who "fought the state administration after being wronged".

To another question, he alleged that police harassment still continues, but he would not be scared.

The lawyer for Mahato, who had moved the high court challenging the state's decision to post him in Raiganj, claimed that the petitioner and two other doctors were prominent faces of the R G Kar movement and have faced police harassment for their role.

It was claimed that in contravention of the provisions of an SOP formulated by the state for deployment of senior residents on the basis of merit, the department has "targeted them" out of a total of 871 doctors in the list and placed them in hospitals far away from the medical institutions opted by them at the time of counselling as "punishment posting".

Mahato had opted for one of the four vacancies at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in the Department of Anaesthesiology, but the department engaged a lesser meritorious candidate for reasons best known to it, Mahato's lawyer stated.

The body of the on-duty post-graduate trainee doctor, who was raped and murdered, was found in the seminar room of the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9, 2024, leading to countrywide protests.

One person, Sanjay Roy, was sentenced to imprisonment for life till the end of his natural life by the Sealdah sessions court after having been found guilty of the rape and murder of the doctor. PTI SUS ACD