Ruchika case: School principal innocent, says church official

CHANDIGARH - The principal of the Sacred Heart School, where teenaged molestation victim Ruchika Girhotra studied but was expelled from allegedly at the behest of tainted Haryana cop S.P.S. Rathore, is innocent and no action will be taken against her, a church official said Thursday.

The assertion came even as the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has ordered disciplinary action against Sister Sebastina, the then principal of the school.

“What action are we going to take against her? We are not going to take any action. She is innocent,” Father Thomas Anchanikal, vicar general and administrator of the Shimla-Chandigarh diocese which runs the 44-year-old school here, told reporters Thursday evening.

“Moreover we have not received any communication in this connection from the CBSE so far. Ruchika was not expelled; she herself stopped coming and therefore her name was struck off from the rolls. No child, in the history of our school, has been expelled. There are cases when students are unable to pay fees but no child has been expelled from here till date,” he added.

This leading all-girls school of Chandigarh, in an inquiry of Chandigarh administration, of expelling Ruchika on frivolous grounds.

On the basis of the inquiry report, the Chandigarh administration had withdrawn the state award given in 2005 to Sebastina.