Rathore looked grim, the usual wide grin on his face wiped off, but defiantly told reporters, “I will keep smiling.”
About 20 years after he molested budding tennis player Ruchika Girhotra, 14, at Panchkula on August 12, 1990, former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore was put behind bars on Tuesday, even as the disgraced ex-top cop kept pleading in the appellate court that he had a cardiac problem and be spared of imprisonment.
Pronouncing the verdict in a jam-packed courtroom, additionaldistrict and sessions judge Gurbir Singh rejected the 68-year-old’s appeal for a lesser punishment and upheld CBI and Ruchika’s family’s pleas to enhance his sentence from six to 18 months in prison.
Rathore looked grim, the usual wide grin on his face wiped off, but defiantly told reporters, “I will keep smiling.”
Soon after the verdict, CBI arrested and took him to Burail Jail in Chandigarh.
Rathore was sentenced to six months rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs1,000 by a CBI special court on December 21 last year, but was granted bail immediately.
This time, too, wife Abha, who defended him in the court, pleaded that he be granted bail since he had undergone a bypass surgery. But the judge ordered his immediate arrest and imprisonment. Documents regarding his medical condition should be given to the jail superintendent, who may provide him medical care, if required, he said.
After Rathore challenged his conviction on January 4, the court had started a speedy trial. But the in-camera hearing was disrupted following an attack on the former top cop by a student of NIFD, Ahmedabad, on February 8. The hearing resumed on May 3 and concluded on May 11, with the court fixing May 20 as the date for pronouncing verdict.
The verdict was, however, deferred to May 25.
Ruchika committed suicide three years after she was molested, unable to withstand family harassment by Haryana Police at the behest of Rathore, the then IG. In the three years after she lodged a complaint against the former top cop, 11 cases of car theft were slapped against her brother Ashu and he was arrested and kept in illegal confinement for almost two months.
CBI took over the case in 1998 after the Haryana government took no action on an official report indicting Rathore.
In 2000, it filed a charge sheet against Rathore in the Ambala court. The case was subsequently transferred to the CBI special court in Patiala and later to Chandigarh.
(With agency inputs)
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