Disgraced former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore was on Friday denied anticipatory bail by a sessions court here in connection with two fresh FIRs registered in the Ruchika molestation case levelling serious criminal charges against him.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jindal said in court that he was dismissing two anticipatory bail pleas each of Rathore and his co-accused ASI Sewa Singh relating to the two new cases registered against them.
The judge had yesterday reserved his order on the anticipatory bail pleas for today. Details of the verdict were not immediately available.
67-year-old Rathore and Sewa Singh had filed the petitions following registration of the two FIRs on December 29.
Ruchika's father Subhash Chander Girhotra and his son Ashu had filed two fresh complaints against Rathore accusing him of attempt to murder, wrongful confinement and forging of the post-mortem report of the victim.
Girhotra's complaint had alleged that the inquest proceedings conducted by the Sector 6 Police Station at PGI in Chandigarh, where Ruchika was taken to after she attempted suicide on December 28, 1993 and died the following day, was without any jurisdiction.
It said this was so as Haryana Police had no locus standii to conduct the proceedings in Chandigarh which is a Union Territory.
A police party from Panchkula in Haryana had gone to the PGI and conducted the inquest proceedings and had got the post mortem done. The officials who should be booked include Rathore, the complaint had demanded.
Ashu, in his complaint, had alleged that seven FIRs pertaining to various offences, including auto theft, were registered against him in a bid to victimise him after the molestation of his sister.
Rathore, a 1995-batch IPS officer of Haryana who retired in 2002, was awarded a lighter punishment of six-month jail term by a CBI court here on December 21 for molesting Ruchika, a budding tennis player in 1990 when he was an IGP.
Abha had sought anticipatory bail in the two cases registered on December 29 saying the issue of 306 IPC charging the former DGP with abetment to suicide, made out in the third new FIR registered on January 5, had already been settled at the level of the Supreme Court.
Both Rathore and his lawyer-wife Abha were not present in the court when the judge pronounced his order that he was dismissing the four anticipatory bail petitions. Rathore was represented by another lawyer J S Mor while Sewa Singh by Ajay Jain.
Reacting to the verdict, Girhotra family's lawyer Pankaj Bhardwaj said, "If police still does not arrest him, we will move the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
"It was clear from the start that he is the mastermind behind the entire thing and his custodial interrogation is necessary to find out who are the other persons he colluded with," he alleged outside the court.
On the state seeking a 3-week period yesterday to file its reply, Bhardwaj alleged they were just adopting delaying tactics and that "they are hand in glove with them (Rathore and other accused)."
He said, "If I were a police officer, I would have arrested him rightaway." He further alleged that "the CBI had also helped him because they never brought certain issues on record earlier like Ruchika being expelled under Rathore's pressure. They never looked at this angle."
Bhardwaj also said that the school Ruchika studied in should be booked for criminal conspiracy under section 120(B) of IPC. Anand Parkash, father of Ruchika's friend Aradhana, said, "It's a victory for Ruchika and the truth has prevailed. I hope that now Rathore will be put behind the bars." PTI
