Ruchika case: Verdict on Rathore's plea on May 2O

Chandigarh: A Sessions court in Chandigarh will pronounce verdict on former Haryana DGP S P S Rathore's plea challenging the six-month sentence awarded to him by a CBI court for molesting teenager Ruchika Girhotra on May 20.

The CBI and relatives of budding tennis player Ruchika, who later committed suicide, had also filed petitions before the court seeking enhancement of the sentence for Rathore.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Gurbir Singh fixed May 20 for delivering the judgement on all the three pleas after conclusion of arguments and counter-arguments in the case, Ruchika's family counsel Pankaj Bhardwaj said today.

The court heard the arguments, which began on May three, on a day-to-day basis, he told reporters here. The proceedings were held in-camera.

The disgraced former top cop had sought setting aside of the trial court verdict against him while the Ruchika family and the CBI had sought maximum punishment of two years for 68-year-old Rathore.

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Sixty-eight -year-old Rathore, a 1965 batch IPS officer, who retired in 2002, was awarded the sentence by a CBI court on December 22, 2009, for molesting Ruchika, a budding tennis player, in 1990.

Ruchika committed suicide three years later on December 28, 1993, and died the following day. Subsequently Rathore was booked in two other criminal cases after Ruchika's father Subhash Chander Girhotra and his son Ashu filed two fresh complaints against Rathore accusing him of attempt to murder, wrongful confinement and forging of the post-mortem report of the victim. (With PTI inputs)

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