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Supreme Court did not say R G Kar crime scene was altered; false claim by editor of propaganda outlet

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud heard the Kolkata R G Kar rape and murder case on August 22, 2024. This was the second hearing of the matter in the apex court. During the hearing, several questions were raised about the chronology of events on August 9, when the body of the junior doctor was discovered in the third-floor seminar room of the state-run hospital.

In this context, the editor-in-chief of Right-wing propaganda website, OpIndia, Nupur J Sharma claimed in a tweet that the Supreme Court said that the crime scene at the R G Kar hospital had been altered.

The tweet has been viewed close to 2.5 Lakh times and retweeted over 7,200 times.

Several X (formerly Twitter) users amplified the claim. Among them are handles such as Keh Ke Peheno
(@coolfunnytshirt), 𝑫𝒓. 𝑲 ✨ (@smilesalotlady_),Ravi Kukreja (@RaviKuk15405190),Bharat Suthar (@bharat_sut78304), AG (@akg7091), कृष्णा (मोदी अंध भक्त) (@MyindianKrishna), 𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐚 भारतीय 🇮🇳🤝🇮🇱 (@NarendraVictory), Pradeep Jakhar (@PradeepkJakhar) and others.

Click to view slideshow.

 

Most of the above tweets, including the one by Nupur J Sharma, were shared in response to a tweet by Kolkata police from August 15, in which they asserted that the vandalism on the previous night had not impacted the seminar room.

Fact Check

To verify the claim, we looked at the X timeline of Live Law and Bar and Bench. Both these legal-reporting handles live-tweeted the proceedings from the Supreme Court.

Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) reported at 11:49 am on August 22 that the CBI counsel, Tushar Mehta, the solicitor general of India (SG), said they did not possess any medical examination report of the accused in the case. He added that they had entered the investigation on the fifth day and everything was altered by then.

The body of the junior doctor was found on August 9. The Calcutta high court handed over the investigation to the central agency on August 13. The CBI took over on August 14.

Below is the Live Law tweet:

The same was live-tweeted by Bar and Bench exactly at the same time (11:49 am).

The Bar and Bench also published a full report of the Court proceedings. The relevant part is highlighted below.

The proceedings were also live telecast. We procured the video of the court proceeding from the X handle of media outlet Mirror Now (@MirrorNow), where we located the conversation:

0.20-seconds onward in the above video, we can hear the SG saying, “My lord, we entered on the fifth day.. Whatever was collected by the local police, my lord was given to us, and our investigation starts.. And that is itself a challenge by itself.. The scene of offence is altered…” (sic)

We went through the entire proceedings of August 22 but we could not find the CJI or the other members of the Bench stating that the crime scene had been altered.

All major newspapers carried the comments by the CBI counsel on their August 23 editions. Below are a few examples:

Click to view slideshow.

None of them mentioned the court having made the observation.

Therefore, the claim by OpIndia editor Nupur J Sharma and the others is false. The Supreme Court did not state the crime scene was altered. It was a claim made by CBI counsel Tushar Mehta, the solicitor general of India.

Interestingly, OpIndia itself published a report on the SC hearing where the headline mentioned that the CBI said in court that the crime scene had been altered.

Ankita Mahalanobish is an intern at Alt News.

The post Supreme Court did not say R G Kar crime scene was altered; false claim by editor of propaganda outlet appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.