Indira Jaising, who had opposed execution of Nirbhaya's rapists, to represent junior doctors in RG Kar case

A 31-year-old trainee doctor was raped and murdered at Kolkata's state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital last month. The incident has sent shockwaves across the country, ignity public fury and brought the police under scanner over an alleged cover-up of the incident.

Jaising replaced Geeta Luthra as the advocate of the West Bengal Junior Doctors' Front.

The next hearing on the case is scheduled to be held in the Supreme Court on September 17.

Dr. Aniket Mahato, who is one of the representatives of the junior doctors, said as quoted by a Bengali daily, "We have appointed Indira Jaising as our advocate. She will fight the case on Tuesday."

Jaising had earned the wrath of the mother of Nirbhaya, whose gangrape in Delhi sent shockwaves across the country, for opposing the death penalties of the four convicts.

The senior advocate had even suggested Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi to stop the execution following the example of then Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who had moved for mercy of a woman convicted in the assassination of her husband, ex-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Interestingly, Jaising was seen in the release of a book (India in Distress) written by Mamata Banerjee in an old social media post of March 2019 by TMC MP Derek O'Brien where the latter quoted her saying "Mamata is my hero". 

In recent times, Jaising was vocal against Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he attended the Ganesh Puja of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, who is hearing the RG Kar case.

Advocate Jaising wrote on X, "Chief Justice of India has compromised the separation of powers between the Executive and Judiciary. Lost all confidence in the independence of the CJI . The SCBA must condemn this publicly displayed compromise of Independence of the CJI from the Executive."

In the last hearing, the junior doctors were ordered by the Supreme Court to resume work by 5 pm on September 10, after which the state government was empowered to take action against the protesters.

The doctors refused to join work and instead marched to the state Health and Family Welfare headquarters Swasthya Bhavan and camped outside the office.

The sit-in protest is still ongoing despite efforts made for talks between the doctors and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the last few days.

On Thursday, about 30-35 junior doctors reached the state government headquarters Nabanna but didn't attend the meeting as their demand for live-streaming of the discussion was turned down by the Chief Minister.

After Mamata reached the doctors' dharna site on Saturday afternoon, the protesters agreed for a meeting at the Chief Minister's residence but the question of live-streaming played spoilsport initially.

After repeated requests from the Chief Minister and a promise of meeting minutes, the junior doctors agreed for a discussion but junior Health Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya and state chief secretary Manoj Pant said it was time over for the day.

While the government is aiming to talk on safety issues in hospitals, the junior doctors' five demands include justice for the victim, disciplinary action against now arrested ex-RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh, resignation of Commissioner of Police Vineet Goyal and two other top police officers, enhancing security at hospitals and elimination of the alleged threat culture.