Rathore Awarded 18-month Term in Ruchika Case, Taken into Custody

Former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore has been taken into custody following a Chandigarh court’s verdict sentencing him to one-and-a-half years in prison for molesting Ruchika Girhotra, said media reports.

The CBI arrested him soon after the District and Sessions Court dismissed plea moved by Rathore challenging his December 2009 conviction in a CBI special court, reports said.

Additional district and sessions judge Gurbir Singh said that Rathore should be taken into custody and taken to the Burail prison here immediately, said reports.

In more than 19 years, it’s for the first time that Rathore has formally been detained in 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 SC Girhotra was quoted as saying by IANS after the verdict.

“This shows that no one is above the law. Even a powerful person like him can be punished,” he was quoted as saying.

Senior lawyer Abha, Rathore’s wife, and his defence counsels instantly engirdled him inside the court following the ruling even though SC Girhotra, Anand and Madhu Prakash and their lawyer Pankaj Bhardwaj quickly moved out of the court to announce the decision to media persons waiting outside the court complex, reports said.

Abha pleaded in the court that since Rathore had undergone heart bypass surgery, he should be permitted bail; but the judge instructed his arrest and handing over of his medical documents to the superintendent of Burail prison, where convict has to be lodged, said reports.

Along with Girhotra and Prakash, the CBI had opposed Rathore’s plea and sought enhancement of punishment to the maximum of two years.

(Based on media reports)