The family of molestation victim Ruchika Girhotra today appeared to be aggrieved at CBI's "compromise" in exclusion of abetment to suicide charge against former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore and said it would file a fresh complaint for its inclusion.
"We will file a fresh case for inclusion of Section 306 of the IPC (abetment to suicide)...the CBI earlier did not press for the inclusion of this section which could have resulted in a tougher sentence to the accused. I do not know why they made this compromise," Ruchika's father SC Girhotra told reporters here.
Rathore was convicted by a CBI court here in the molestation case and awarded a six-month jail sentence. Meanwhile, their counsel Pankaj Bhardwaj said he had no knowledge about the woman Veena Girhotra, whose signature figures in the witness column in the inquest proceedings which were carried out after Ruchika's suicide.
"I have no clue who this woman is. I never met her nor did she ever come to my office. Over the years I have only known Ruchika's brother Ashoo, Mr Girhotra and the Prakash family, who took up the cudgels to fight the case," Bhardwaj maintained.
The lawyer suspected foul play in the inquest report of the teenager which blamed her death to excessive use of slimming pills.
"The inquest report was prepared by the police and despite Ruchika's cause of death having been due to consuming poisonous pesticide, the report does not mention the correct reason. There was definitely somebody manipulating the whole thing from behind," the advocate alleged.
A committee should be set up to examine the official records over the years, "because there have been manipulations and truth has been concealed," he said. Bhardwaj also alleged that there was failure of the "entire system" in the case.
Detailing about glaring mistakes in the police report on Ruchika's death, he said the girl's name was given as 'Ruby' and her age as 19 at the time of death in 1993 though she was still a minor at 14.
Besides, her father's name erroneously figured as Subhas Chand Khatri and not SC Girhotra. The statement of the father, attested by then assistant sub-inspector of Punchkula police station, saying he does not have suspicion about his daughter's death, gives his name as just 'Subash'. The mistake was done by police, who wrote names of the witness with their surnames.
Rathore, a 1965-batch IPS officer who retired in 2002, molested Ruchika, a budding tennis player, in 1990 when he was IGP. She committed suicide three years later by consuming poison on December 29, 1993. The retired IPS officer was not tried for abetment to suicide.
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