Court to hold hearings daily in Ruchika case

A local court in Chandigarh will hear the petitions of disgraced former Haryana director general of police S P S Rathore on a day-to-day basis from May 3 challenging his conviction for molesting teenager Ruchika Girhotra and of Central Bureau of Investigation and the victim's family seeking enhancement of his six months sentence.

The court will pronounce its verdict on the petitions on May 8, Pankaj Bhardwaj, counsel for Ruchika's family told journalists after the in-camera hearing for the second consecutive day on Friday.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Gurbir Singh directed that the three petitions filed by Rathore, the CBI and Ruchika's family and friends would be heard on day-to-day basis from May 3 to May 8 without adjournments, said Bhardwaj, who was accompanied by Anand Parkash and Madhu Parkash, the couple fighting the Ruchika.

Amid tight security following an earlier attack on him, Rathore along with his counsel wife Abha reached the court at around 11.30 am.

They were present in the courtroom during the arguments, which stretched for three hours.

Rathore was accompanied by a few Haryana policemen provided to him for security. After the case was adjourned for May 3 in the evening, Rathore came out smiling as usual and did not respond to any questions from media.

The hearing on the appeals, which have been clubbed, was adjourned following an attack on Rathore by a youth outside the court premises on February 8 this year.

The last hearing in the case was held on March 10 when the defence had asked for an adjournment saying their counsel N D Sharma needed time to recover from the attack.

Sharma was also injured along with Rathore when a youth Utsav Sharma had attacked the former DGP with a pocketknife.

The former DGP was sentenced to six-month imprisonment on December 21 last year by CBI Judge J S Sidhu, who had held him guilty of molesting 14-year-old Ruchika, a budding tennis player, at Panchkula near in Haryana on August 12, 1990. Ruchika later committed suicide.

The case had sparked a furore and the CBI and family and friends of Ruchika had filed petitions seeking maximum punishment of two years for the former top police officer of Haryana.

Held guilty under section 354 of the IPC (molestation) by the CBI court, Rathore was granted bail by Additional District and Session's Judge R S Attri's court after his appeal against the sentence was admitted on January 13.