New Delhi: The Bengal government and police seem to be surrounded in the case of brutality against a doctor in Kolkata. During the hearing in the Supreme Court on Monday, questions were raised about the incident and the postmortem. Raising questions on the absence of the challan form for sending the body for postmortem, the apex court said that if this document is missing then something is wrong.

The court directed the Kolkata Police to present it on the next date. The issue of 14 hours delay in filing the FIR, the timing of the postmortem, giving only 27 minutes of CCTV footage to the CBI also came up, which seems to put the state government and the police in question.

The matter should not be politicised: Court 

The court ordered the CBI to file a new status report by September 17 and put the case for hearing again on next Tuesday. The court also ordered the Bengal government to accommodate three CISF companies and provide them with necessary security equipment and facilities. The court again said that the matter should not be politicized.

This order was given on Monday by a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra. In the last hearing, the court had asked the CBI for the progress report of the investigation and the state government for the action taken report on the demolition of RG Kar Hospital. On Monday, both the CBI and the Bengal government submitted the reports. After seeing the report, the bench directed the CBI to continue the investigation.

Was the CCTV footage of the incident given to CBI: Court

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta raised questions on Kolkata Police and forensic investigation and said that CBI has decided to send forensic samples to AIIMS for investigation. This is where the series of questions started. The court asked Bengal government's lawyer Kapil Sibal whether the CCTV footage of the incident spot has been given to CBI.

When Sibal replied in the affirmative, Mehta said that a total of 27 minutes of footage has been provided. The CBI will have to reconstruct the incident as the footage is from a distance. The court also asked whether all the footage of the seizure and search process that went on from 8:30 pm to 10:45 pm was provided to the CBI. A lawyer questioned the timing of the post-mortem and said that as per the rules, post-mortem is not conducted after 6 pm.

Mehta read the post-mortem report, according to which when the doctor's body was found, she was in a semi-nude state, and it was also said that she had been raped.

He questioned the way swab samples were taken from the body and the investigation. The lawyer of a PIL petitioner in the High Court said that there are many flaws in the investigation and documentation. The seizure from the crime scene was done at 11.30 pm before the FIR was registered. The swab collected from the body should have been kept at 4 degrees Celsius, which was not done.

The court asked many questions regarding the post-mortem 

The victim's clothes were not sent sealed along with the body for postmortem. At the same time, the court asked where is the postmortem challan. It is in that that entries of the material sent along with the body will be recorded. The court asked Sibal to show it, but he said that he did not have that document.

When the court asked if the postmortem challan has been given to the CBI, Mehta replied in the negative. When Sibal said that he would take instructions and inform the court, the question arose that how did the postmortem happen without it?

Justice Pardiwala drew Sibal's attention to a paper and said, "See the third column above, the constable should take this (form). It has been crossed out. So there is no reference to the challan when the body is sent for investigation."

The Chief Justice also questioned the delay in filing the FIR and said that it was registered at 11.30 pm, almost 14 hours later. Sibal said that the post-mortem was done in the presence of a judicial magistrate. The court again ordered to remove the pictures and other material of the dead body from the internet media.