Ruchika case: Punjab and Haryana High Court seeks details of Rathore’s promotion

CHANDIGARH - The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday sought details from the Haryana Government on how former Haryana Director General of Police (DGP) SPS Rathore was promoted to the rank of DGP, when a complaint of molestation was pending against him.

The court issued the direction while hearing a PIL filed by a local advocate seeking a fresh case against Rathore for abetment to suicide of 14-year-old teenager Ruchika Girhotra in 1990.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Rajan Gogoi also directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to place on record the final report it had submitted in the three FIRs against SPS Rathore.

The court further directed the investigating agency to provide notings on the service file relating to the promotion of Rathore as DGP.

A notice was also issued to Sacred Heart School directing the authorities to produce the inquiry report on Ruchika’s expulsion from the institute allegedly at the behest of Rathore.

The lawyer had filed the PIL in December 2009 seeking a fresh case against Rathore under section 305 of the IPC (abetment of suicide of a minor or insane person) as Ruchika was a minor when the incident occurred.

The PIL also sought strict action against Chandigarh’s Sacred Heart School for expelling Ruchika Girhotra on illegal grounds.

It also sought appropriate action against all those officers, who favoured Rathore and delayed the trial.

Earlier on November 11, the Supreme Court granted bail to SPS Rathore in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case.

The apex court took the decision keeping into account the closure report filed by the CBI and the fact that he had already spent six months in prison.

The Supreme Court, however, asked Rathore to deposit his passport with the CBI and not to leave the country.

Ruchika’s family recently filed two other cases against Rathore, accusing him of doctoring her post-mortem report, and of torturing her brother who was arrested after her death.

The CBI had on November 10 said it had found no facts to support the allegations made by Ruchika Girhotra’s family against SPS Rathore, who was serving 18-month jail sentence on charges of molesting the 14-year-old teenager in 1990.

The investigating agency filed a closure report in the Ambala court giving a point-by-point disproof to all the eight charges made by Ruchika’s father SC Girhotra and four allegations made by her brother Ashu, who claimed that he was taken home in a semi-nude condition and that false cases were slapped on him about auto-theft at Rathore’s behest.

In its report, the CBI claimed that the allegations could not be substantiated “”"as per the documentary evidence and oral testimony of witnesses”"”.The probe disclosed that Ruchika had consumed poison in the morning of December 28, 1993 at her home in Panchkula and that she was taken to PGI hospital by Girhotra and his second wife Veena of their own,” the investigating agency said in its closure report.

The CBI was investigating whether Rathore drove Ruchika to suicide after she filed molestation charges.

Ruchika, a budding tennis player, had committed suicide three years after being molested by Rathore on August 12, 1990. (ANI)