Ruchika case: HC defers Rathore bail plea till Wed

Disgraced former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore, sentenced to 18-month prison term by a court in Chandigarh in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case, on Tuesday again failed to get any relief as the Punjab and Haryana High Court deferred the hearing in his bail petition till Wednesday.

The hgh court's single vacation bench of Justice Ajay Tewari posted the matter for Wednesday after it was told to him that advocate of Ruchika's family Pankaj Bhardwaj was indisposed.

The same judge had on Monday deferred the hearing on Rathore's revision petition seeking bail till Tuesday.

68-year-old Rathore's lawyer wife Abha Rathore had filed the review petition on his behalf in the high court on May 26 seeking bail, a day after he was sentenced by a sessions court in Chandigarh and lodged in the high security Burail jail.

On May 28, HC Judge Justice Gurdev Singh had posted the matter for May 31 on the plea of the Central Bureau of Investigation counsel that the investigating agency had not received copy of the review petition.

In her petition, Abha Rathore had alleged that the appellate court had on May 25 passed the order "under media pressure".

On Monday, CBI had strongly opposed Rathore's bail plea before the HC, submitting that he must undergo "some part of marginal sentence" awarded to him.

14-year-old Ruchika, a budding tennis player, had committed suicide three years after being molested by Rathore on August 12, 1990.

A sessions court had on May 25 enhanced Rathore's jail term from six months to one-and-a-half years while allowing the plea of CBI and the Girhotra family.