M A I N   N E W S

Madhu to move application
Says Ruchika case is ‘still maintainable’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 22 — Mrs Madhu Anand Prakash, complainant in the Ruchika molestation case, in which the CBI has filed a charge sheet against the Haryana DGP, Mr S.P.S. Rathore, under Section 354, IPC, in the court of the Special Magistrate, Ambala, Mr A.K. Tyagi plans to move an application before the court urging it that she should also be impleaded in the case.

Mrs Prakash told TNS today that she would urge the court to hear her why the case against Mr Rathore was maintainable despite a delay of about 10 years. She said her legal advisers were of the view that there was no delay on the part of the complainant or the aggrieved party. The delay, if any, was on the part of the government or the police, of which the accused was a senior officer. Hence the investigating agency was obviously protecting its officer.

Still, a report was recorded in the daily diary(roznamcha) by the Panchkula police. Therefore, it would be wrong to say that action on the complaint had started after the limitation period was over.

Mrs Prakash, who relentlessly pursued the case for justice for the past 10 years, said she would also urge the Special Magistrate to add Section 306(abetment to suicide) of the IPC to the charge sheet against Mr Rathore. Her contention, she said, would be supported by the case-diaries (jimnis) filed by the CBI itself because almost all witnesses had deposed before the investigating agency that the teenager Ruchika allegedly committed suicide as she and her family were being harassed by Mr Rathore.

She said so much so Ruchika’s younger brother, Ashu, was not only implicated in false auto-theft cases but was also tortured by the police so much that even today he could not walk properly.

Mrs Prakash said a too technical view of the legal provisions would only defeat the cause of justice, which was never the intention of the high court and the Supreme Court when a CBI inquiry was ordered by these courts into the charges against Mr Rathore.

Meanwhile, the Haryana Government, as yet, is not contemplating any action against Mr Rathore in view of the CBI charge sheet against him. Informed sources say the government would like to wait for the court decision on the maintainability of the criminal case filed by the CBI against Mr Rathore before initiating any action against him. The Special Magistrate is scheduled to hear arguments on an application filed by the CBI for condonation of the delay in filing the charge-sheet against Mr Rathore on November 27.

The CBI plea is that it had filed the charge sheet within one year of the registration of the FIR.

Resign, says BJP

CHANDIGARH, Nov 12 — The Haryana BJP too has demanded the removal of Mr Rathore from his post in view of the CBI charge-sheet against him. The General Secretary of the party, Mr Manohar Lal Khattar, said here today that Mr Rathore himself should quit his post on moral grounds.

Mr Khattar said it had always been a matter of policy with the BJP that people in high positions should quit once a charge-sheet was filed against them in a court of law. On similar grounds, the Union Minister of State for Defence, Mr Hiren Pathak, and a Gujarat Minister were made to resign when a charge-sheet in a murder case was filed against them. Even the resignation of the former Union Minister, Mr Boota Singh, was sought by the Prime Minister for the same reasons. Earlier, the Congress had also demanded the removal of Mr Rathore.