Last August, Dr Sandip Ghosh, former principal of RG KAR Medical College and Hospital, has been under scrutiny from the West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC) allegedly allegedly from the Eartuare the Ear to the Ear to-nose to the Earth to-nose to the Earth to the Earroat to-nose to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to
Gosh is also accused of allegedly participating in a financial breach of the state-run RG KAR hospital and is currently in jail after being arrested in September last year.
However, Gosh’s lawyer Zohab Rahuf denied the WBHRC’s claim against the former principal, calling it “unfounded.”
Sources said the incident occurred in January 2023, as part of its Golden Jubilee Conference at the endoscopic sinus surgery seminar held at RG KAR Hospital. The three-member committee (WBHRC) then accepted Suo Motu Cognizance on January 10 and sought a detailed report by the Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare by January 31, 2023.
The RG KAR’s doctors committee conducted an initial investigation into the matter and forwarded a report to the WBHRC by the Deputy Secretary’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. WBHRC received the same investigation report in March 2023.
According to the report, the body was sent to the ENT workshop after obtaining the verbal consent of the police in the jurisdiction and the families of the deceased. Later, the police were granted written permission. The report claims that the workshop only shows external anatomy and does not use any technology that would interfere with the postmortem examination.
WBHRC does not accept the report of the Commission of Inquiry and asks for clarification on why the prior written permission of the relative of the deceased and the prior permission of the police authorities were not obtained. It also claimed to have obtained the police’s post-written permission, but the date and authorities have not specified it.
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WBHRC was dissatisfied with the second report submitted and decided to convene doctors and heads of relevant departments. During the record statement, the Commission received a complaint from the former head of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (FMT) at RG KAR in September 2023. Based on this complaint, additional police officers (SPs) from the Police Department of the WBHRC Investigation Department were asked to submit detailed reports.
According to the committee’s report, the former director of forensic medicine and toxicology at RG KAR filed a complaint, saying: “The entire incident was a matter of a larger conspiracy by Dr. Sandip Ghosh, president of the RG KAR Medical College and Hospital, Dr. Sandip Ghosh, and demonstrators Deptt. Forensic medicine, rg kar.”
According to the complaint, the ENT department requested for the purpose of the seminar, and the complainant agreed to provide unclaimed bodies (after completion and preparation for disposal) or donated through the anatomy department.
But then Principal (Sandip Ghosh) Allegedly, attempts to forge a post report and pressure the morgue waiter to make certain registration entries on January 11, 2023. The waiter refused, saying the autopsy report had been uploaded online – on the web portal.
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The complainant also claimed that the former principal threatened the waiter in the morgue.
According to the complainant’s statement to the committee, “The former principal of RG Kar Medical is responsible for everything”.
Initially, in September 2023, Sandip Ghosh allegedly recorded his statement on the grounds of “emergency family work.”
However, in January 2024, he recorded his statement in the WBHRC’s investigation unit and denied all charges.
“At the same time as the commission issued a statement, Dr. Sandip Ghosh claimed that he was unaware that the HOD, FMT department, RG KAR medical school and hospital refused to request letters to provide the body for the workshop. In the statement made before the investigation department, Dr. Sandip Ghosh admitted that the dissection of the body without any orders or observation of any formalities before the body was examined was a serious negligence.”
Report.
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Meanwhile, according to the report, the committee did not accept Gosh’s statement.
“Dr. Sandip Ghosh is the head of RG KAR Medical College and Hospital… In the statement made before the committee, he tried to escape his responsibility by saying that he was not directly or indirectly involved in the incident, and he had just forwarded the letter to HOD FMT. Dr. Ghosh tried to clarify that he said he was not aware of refusing the complainant’s prayer to provide the body to the workshop earlier. Such clarification or explanation was not available at all. More importantly, he himself also admitted that the dissection of the body before the autopsy, without any orders or observation of any formalities, was serious negligence. This means that he allowed not only the body to be placed before the seminar, but also the dissection of the body before the autopsy and the consequences of such anatomy were examined before the autopsy. The principals of the RG KAR Medical College and Hospital were also responsible for the incident.”
In January, the WBHRC recommended providing false and misleading evidence against Ghosh and others, deliberately attempting to mislead the committee and block its investigation into the improper use of the bodies of five dead people sent from hospital Morgue.
The committee has requested “the Chief Secretary of West Bengal to inform us of actions taken or recommended within three months”.
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WBHRC member Basudeb Banerjee declined to comment on the matter, saying the committee’s decision was in the public domain.
Ghosh’s lawyer Zohab Rahuf told Indian Express“The WBHRC’s order has passed ignorance without hearing that my client violates the principle of natural justice. It is the teeth in the Kolkata High Court’s order in WPA (P) 614, 2023, which has freed my client from such baseless allegations. Unfortunately, there is no such order even.”
