Zeenews Bureau
Chandigarh: Former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore, convicted in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case, received no immediate relief from the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday, which adjourned the hearing on his bail plea till Friday.
Rathore, whose sentence in the case was yesterday enhanced to 18 months, had earlier today filed a review petition in the Punjab and Haryana HC and also sought bail.
68-year-old Rathore`s lawyer-wife Abha Rathore filed the review petition on his behalf in the court of Justice S S Saron.
She had alleged that the appellate court had yesterday passed the order "under media pressure".
While seeking bail for the former top cop, Abha in her petition, also sought to apprise the court about the heart ailment which Rathore is suffering from.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Gurbir Singh had yesterday rejected Rathore’s appeal against his December 2009 conviction in a CBI special court in the August 1990 molestation of Ruchika in Panchkula. The girl had committed suicide three years later.
The judge had also allowed the CBI and Ruchika’s family’s appeal seeking enhancement of term and hiked 68-year-old Rathore’s sentence from six to 18 months.
The disgraced former DGP was later arrested and taken to the Burail Jail here.
Rathore`s wife had yesterday pleaded with the judge that her husband had undergone a heart bypass surgery and should be given bail. But the judge ordered that Rathore be arrested and taken to Burail prison. He asked Rathore`s wife to give reports of his medical condition to the jail superintendent.
Rathore was later examined by a doctor in the jail. His wife reached the prison to meet him but was not given entry. She gave his medicines to the prison staff.
This is the first time in two decades that Rathore has been formally arrested in the molestation case that millions followed across the country after the dead girl`s best friend took on the ex-cop in what at one time seemed an unequal David-versus-Goliath battle.
On Tuesday, however, Ruchika`s family and friends were jubilant.
"We are very happy. Justice has been done. But our fight to get him even more punishment for abetment to suicide will continue. We cannot bring Ruchika back but today her soul will rest in peace," Ruchika`s father SC Girhotra said after the verdict.
"This shows that no one is above the law. Even a powerful person like him can be punished. Two years or one-and-a-half years does not matter," he added.
(With PTI/IANS inputs)
