Ex-top cop Rathore finally behind bars, gets 18 months jail (Roundup)

CHANDIGARH - Disgraced former Haryana police chief S.P.S Rathore was Tuesday lodged in the Burail jail here after the district and sessions court upheld his conviction in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case and gave him an enhanced prison term of 18 months.

Rathore, 68, who was present in the court when Additional District and Sessions Judge Gurbir Singh pronounced the verdict Tuesday afternoon, was taken into custody by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and taken to the Burail prison.

The judge rejected his appeal against his December 2009 conviction in a CBI special court in the August 1990 molestation of teenager Ruchika Girhotra at Panchkula town in Haryana, 15 km from here.

This is the first time in over 19 years that Rathore has been formally arrested in the Ruchika molestation case.

“We are very happy. Justice has been done. But our fight to get him even more punishment for abetment of suicide (of Ruchika) will continue. We are all very happy. We cannot bring Ruchika back now but today her soul will rest in peace,” Ruchika’s father S.C. Girhotra told IANS after the verdict.

“This shows that no one is above the law. Even a powerful person like him can be punished. Two years or one-and-a-half years does not matter,” Girhotra added.

Rathore’s wife and senior lawyer Abha Rathore and other lawyers defending him immediately surrounded Rathore inside the court even as Ruchika’s father, main complainants in the case Anand and Madhu Prakash and their lawyer Pankaj Bhardwaj rushed out of the court to announce the judgment to the media waiting outside the court complex.

Rathore’s wife pleaded with the judge that he (Rathore) had undergone heart bypass surgery and should be allowed bail. However, the judge ordered that Rathore be arrested and taken to Burail prison and the documents regarding his medical condition be given to the jail superintendent.

Rathore was examined by a doctor inside the Burail jail. His wife later arrived at the prison to hand over medication and other things to him.

The CBI had opposed Rathore’s plea and had sought an enhancement of his sentence from six months to the maximum of two years.

Rathore, who left Tuesday afternoon for the court from his bungalow in Panchkula’s upscale Sector 6, was beaming and waved to media camerapersons waiting outside his house.

Dressed in a white striped shirt and trousers with a tie and black sun-shades, he folded his hands as his Tata Indica car passed the waiting media.

Judge Singh had heard the arguments in the matter continuously on day-to-day basis for eight days earlier May.

The order of the court came after Rathore, a former director general of police (DGP) in Haryana, filed a plea January this year challenging his conviction December last year by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court here for molesting 15-year-old Ruchika Aug 12, 1990.

Ruchika committed suicide three years after Rathore molested her in Panchkula town, adjoining Chandigarh, nearly two decades ago.

Rathore was sentenced to six months’ rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs.1,000 by the CBI special court. However, he was immediately granted bail.

Ruchika’s father told IANS: “We had produced enough evidence before the investigating agencies and the court of Rathore’s involvement in the molestation case and also the subsequent events.”

Anand Parkash, main complainant in this case, said: “We have won the battle and now we will win the war. We want more punishment for him.”

Anand Parkash’s daughter Aradhna, who lives in Australia, was the only eyewitness in this case.

Reacting to the verdict, advocate Kriti Singh said in New Delhi: “One and half years jail term may be just fine, but it is still less than the maximum term of two years that a convict could be given for molesting the girl.”

“The real justice to the girl would be the day Rathore is tried for driving the young girl to commit suicide by harassing her family members and implicating her brother in false cases,” added Singh, the legal counsel of the All India Democratic Women Association (AIDWA).

Lawyer Ajay Agrawal, who waged a long battle in the Supreme Court to get Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchhi extradited to India for his alleged role in the Bofors gun pay off scandal, said: “Enhancement of sentence by just one year is merely a symbolic justice to the girl.”