JOIN USRathore is currently in jail after a sessions court on May 25 awarded him 18 months’ imprisonment for molesting 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra in 1990.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday strongly opposed Rathore’s bail plea before the single vacation judge, Justice Ajay Tewari, arguing that he must undergo “some part of the marginal sentence” awarded to him. “It was a two-decade-long battle...at least Rathore must spend one-third of the sentence in jail,” CBI counsel Anmol Rattan Sidhu pleaded for an hour before a jam-packed courtroom.
Earlier on Friday, the bail plea for the suspension of sentence and the revision petition filed by Rathore against the lower court verdict were taken up for hearing. However, the hearing was adjourned to Monday after the CBI sought time to file its reply.
Rathore’s counsel wife Abha and daughter Priyanjali, who is also a lawyer, represented him in the court and accused the CBI of indulging in delaying tactics by not filing its reply.
Incidentally, Priyanjali was a classmate of Ruchika at Sacred Hearts’ School here when the molestation incident involving her father took place. Ruchika was later expelled by the school citing non-payment of fee as reason. However, an inquiry by the Chandigarh administration and the CBSE blamed the school authorities for unreasonably shunting out Ruchika under external pressure, ostensibly from Rathore who was then an IGP of Haryana police.
Abha claimed that the “whole case is based on forged documents.” She alleged that all the signatures of Ruchika on documents presented before the prosecuting agency during the trial were “forged.”
She contended that Anand Parkash, whose wife Madhu Parkash was the complainant in the case and S C Girhotra, father of Ruchika, had only joined the case later. “He (Rathore) has been never held guilty of misconduct throughout his life...he is a honest man with high moral character and exceptional record of integrity,” Abha argued while pleading that Rathore may be released on bail.