Chandigarh: Hearing on SPS Rathore`s pleas
for anticipatory bail and quashing of the charge of abetment
to suicide in Ruchika molestation case was today adjourned by
the Punjab and Haryana High Court till January 25 even as the
CBI opposed any relief to the tainted former DGP saying he
might tamper with evidence and intimidate witnesses.
Justice Sabina adjourned the hearing on the three cases,
including two anticipatory bail petitions in fresh FIRs
levelling serious criminal charges against 68-year-old
Rathore, after the former IPS officer`s lawyer-wife Abha
pointed out that she had not been given the copies of the
replies filed before the Court by Ruchika`s family lawyer
Pankaj Bhardwaj and the CBI.
Anmol Rattan Sidhu, counsel for CBI, which recently took
the probe into the fresh cases from Haryana police, sought
four weeks` time to reply to Rathore`s petition seeking
quashing of the third FIR against him registered on the
complaint of Ruchika`s brother Ashu Girhotra under section 306
IPC (abetment to suicide).
Justice Sabina directed the CBI counsel to file the reply
on January 25 when the petitions would be taken up.
Abha told the court that though a 30-member CBI team was
conducting the investigation, so far they have not been able
to bring out anything against Rathore on record.
The CBI in its reply cited the high positions held by
Rathore in the state and said, "There is every likelihood of
tampering with evidence and intimidation of the witnesses by
him...he can misuse his position even now."
"Six days have passed now (since CBI took over the
investigations), but the CBI has been simply quoting from the
FIRs. Whatever they have, they should put before the court,"
Rathore`s lawyer wife Abha pleaded.
However, the CBI counsel Sidhu told the Court that the
investigating agency was putting in its best efforts and
investigations into the allegations levelled against the
former top cop were on.
He said granting anticipatory bail to Rathore at this
stage when the investigating agency has just taken over the
investigation from the state police, "would not be in the
interest of justice as it will come in the way of smooth and
effective investigation by the agency".
Noting that there are serious allegations against Rathore
in the present FIRs, Sidhu said, "He has also been convicted
in the previous case of CBI relating to molestation of
Ruchika. The petitioner can abscond to thwart investigation."
He also said that the recent order of a Panchkula Court
rejecting Rathore`s anticipatory bail pleas in the fresh
cases "is proper and based on sound reasoning".
Praying for dismissal of his anticipatory bail petition,
the CBI also countered Rathore`s plea that the fresh cases
against him had been registered under the influence of media.
With regard to Ruchika`s brother Ashu Girhotra`s
allegations in the FIR that Rathore, the then IGP, had "openly
threatened him that if any complaint is made to anybody, he
(complainant) would be done to death", the CBI in its reply
said that "this aspect of the case will also be thoroughly
investigated by them (CBI)".
Lawyer for Ruchika`s family, Pankaj Bhardwaj, in his
reply also submitted that any relief to Rathore at this stage
"would amount to scuttling the investigation".
He contested Abha Rathore`s claim that the matter with
regard to Section 306 of the IPC (abetment to suicide) already
stands settled.
"It is relevant to state here that since the complainant
-- Ashu Girhotra -- who is the witness of abetment to suicide
against whom various cases of auto theft were lodged and who
was released on bail only after the death of Ruchika, was
never examined," Bhardwaj said.
"With regard to the legal preposition, it is made
abundantly clear that no trial under Section 306 of the
IPC had ever begun in the present (molestation) case,
therefore, the question of conviction or acquittal in the same
offence does not arise at all," he further said in his reply.
On January 12, the High Court, while giving no relief to
Rathore, had posted for today arguments on the petitions of
the former IPS officer while asking CBI, which is probing the
case, to give its response to the cases.
Rathore had got away with a lighter sentence of six-month
imprisonment awarded last month by the CBI court in Chandigarh
for molesting 14-year-old Ruchika on August 12, 1990, three
years after which she committed suicide.
Justice Sabina had at the last hearing issued notices to
the CBI after brief arguments during which the probe agency
had submitted that it needed a week s time to file a reply
since the three FIRs had been registered only on January 11, a
day before the cases were transferred to it by the Haryana
Police.
The two fresh FIRs, registered on the basis of complaints
by Ruchika`s father S C Girhotra and brother Ashu, accuse
Rathore of committing serious offences including attempt to
murder, wrongful confinement, giving false evidence and
doctoring the post mortem report of the girl.
Rathore had filed another petition seeking quashing of
the third FIR against him registered under section 306 IPC
(abetment to suicide) stating that the issue had been settled
earlier even at the level of the Supreme Court.
-PTI
