Kolkata: Days after saying that he would surrender before the Special CBI Court, former Deputy Superintendent of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Akhtar Ali, on Monday did not show up at the court.
Even after the scheduled time of 11:00 a.m., there was no sign of him.
Meanwhile, the CBI investigating officers and lawyers waited for Akhtar in the court premises, but he was nowhere to be seen. After Monday’s absence, it is not clear whether he will surrender before the court on Tuesday.
As the stipulated time for surrender passed without the accused appearing, questions about the future course of the case have been raised.
On Saturday, Ali had appeared before the same court, a day after a special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) issued an arrest warrant against him. However, as the court closed at 12:30 p.m. that day, he could not surrender before the court.
Akhtar did not take his lawyer with him even though he went to the court from the hospital on Saturday. He also did not inform the court in advance. He had promised that he would surrender before the court on Monday.
“I am still sick. I was in the hospital. I did not have my mobile. So I did not know that the court would be closed today. I came. But bad luck. The court has told me to surrender on Monday. I will take action accordingly. If I get into trouble, they will arrest me. If they drag me to the court, then that will happen,” he had said.
A special court of the CBI on Friday issued an arrest warrant against Akhtar Ali, who had been the first whistle-blower in the multi-crore financial irregularities case in state-run R.G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, also infamous for the ghastly rape and murder of a woman junior doctor within the hospital premises in August 2024.
Ali, the former Deputy Superintendent of R.G. Kar, was the first one to raise an alarm over the involvement of former and controversial R.G. Kar principal Sandip Ghosh in the financial irregularities case at the state-run medical college and hospital.
In fact, based on his petition, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court ordered a CBI probe into the case of R.G. Kar’s financial irregularities. Later, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) also started a parallel probe into the matter.
(IANS)
