Get cracking, CBI told

The Centre on Tuesday directed the CBI to quickly appeal for enhancing the six-month jail term for former Haryana police chief S.P. S. Rathore, and find ways of filing a fresh case against him for forcing 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra to commit suicide in 1993.

Faced with mounting public pressure, the Centre on Tuesday directed the CBI to quickly appeal for enhancing the six-month jail term for former Haryana police chief S.P. S. Rathore, and find ways of filing a fresh case against him for forcing 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra to commit suicide in 1993.

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Exactly 16 years after Ruchika committed suicide, Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily summoned CBI director Ashwani Kumar to his office and discussed the issue with him for more than an hour.

“The first and natural course of action is to immediately appeal in a higher court for enhancement of jail sentence for molestation. The next is how to start fresh investigations against Rathore and others for abetment of suicide,” Moily told HT.

Ruchika was forced out of school and her brother was handcuffed and kept in police custody for two months, “this is blatant misuse of official position”, Moily said.

“It were the such sequence of events that drove the innocent teenage girl to suicide. We are seeking legal opinion on how a fresh case can be registered against the guilty police officers,” the minister said.

Moily said the law provided for life term to those guilty of “abetting a suicide of a minor, and 10 years imprisonment for those forcing a major (above 18 years of age) to suicide.”

He said it was being examined if Rathore and others should be booked under the section for “abetting a suicide of a major or a minor. We are finding out whether Ruchika was a major or a minor,” the minister said.

Top law officers of the government are examining the lower court judgment in the case, which will be treated as a “model case” to prevent subvertion of the justice system, Moily said.

The CBI said it will go in for a complete review of the case and the final decision will be taken in consultation with the law and home ministries.

“The matter is under investigation. All aspects of the judgment are being considered by our legal experts,” said agency’s spokesperson, Harsh Bal.

Apart from the appeal, fresh charges against Rathore, including abetment to suicide and attempts to bribe the then CBI joint director R.M. Singh are understood to be under consideration.