CBI should probe conduct of AIIMS team which examined actor SSR death: Actor's family lawyer

By Sahil Pandey
New Delhi [India], October 7 : Days after the AIIMS forensic team submitted its report expressing the medico-legal opinion over actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death, senior advocate Vikas Singh representing the actor's family on Wednesday requested the CBI to look into the conduct of Dr. Sudhir Gupta, who headed the AIIMS panel which re-examined the death of the actor.
Speaking at a press conference here, Vikas Singh said, "The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) should look into the conduct of the AIIMS team. They should examine who these doctors met and the statements they gave to the media."
"The investigators and not the doctors will answer the question whether it is a suicide or not," Singh said raising questions about the AIIMS' opinion.
He added that in the report submitted by the team to CBI there is no discussion on the fractures and injuries, the viscera was so dry that it would have been difficult to bring anything out of it.
"The AIIMS conduct is questionable: Their doctors came to the TV channel to share their opinion when the report has not been shared in the public," he said while adding that such statements by the team of doctors are against the MCI ethical guidelines.
"Their work was only to give a medico-legal opinion. They shouldn't have given statements to the press. The CBI should also look into their conduct too," said Singh.
Singh added that Dr Sudhir Gupta had good conduct with him and when he had sent him the pictures he had said that it's 200 per cent a case of strangulation and not suicide. He should not have given such loose statements. The AIIMS didn't have the body of Sushant. They only had to give an opinion.
Earlier in the day, the legal team representing the family of the late actor wrote to CBI Director Rishi Kumar Shukla claiming that the forensic examination conducted by the AIIMS board is faulty.
In a letter addressed to the CBI Director, the legal team represented by Varun Singh said, "I have been reading in the media about the report submitted by AIIMS to CBI with regard to the opinion expressed by CBI in the matter of the death of Sushant Singh Rajput on June 14, 2020. I have also seen some doctors who were part of the AIIMS team come on TV and make statements with regard to the forensic examination done by the team."
The letter further said that in spite of several efforts to get a copy of the report, there has been no response from Dr Sudhir Gupta, and I am accordingly writing this letter on the premise that the news report regarding the AIIMS opinion is correct.
The leaked report, if correct, amounts to drawing a biased and boastful conclusion from insufficient evidence, the legal team said.
The legal team while raising questions on the said report said that AIIMS was not doing a post-mortem report but only had to express its opinion with regard to the post-mortem report done by the Cooper Hospital as AIIMS did not have the privilege of examining the body of Sushant Singh Rajput and thus forming a firsthand opinion about the cause of death.
The AIIMS panel in its report questioned the absence of the timing of death in the autopsy report and pointed towards the dimly-lit post mortem room at Cooper Hospital, sources said.
The source ruled out the poisoning angle in the death of the late actor. The source said that in the conclusive report submitted with the agency, doctors have pointed out the dim lighting in the post mortem room of Cooper Hospital.
Sushant's autopsy was carried out by three doctors of Cooper Hospital on the night of June 14.
A team of AIIMS' Forensic department was roped in by the CBI to give medico-legal opinion on the death of the actor.
The actor was found dead in his apartment on June 14.