AMBALA, Nov 29—The Special Magistrate for CBI cases in Haryana, Mr A.K. Tyagi, today adjourned the Ruchika molestation case, in which the Haryana Director-General of Police, Mr S.P.S. Rathore is the respondent-accused, to December 2 to enable counsel for the DGP to argue on the CBI application for condoning the delay in filing the charge sheet relating to the incident which allegedly took place in 1990.

While adjourning the case on the request of a battery of advocates who appeared on behalf of Mr Rathore, Mr Tyagi, on the request of the CBI counsel, Mr Chandresh Sahai, ordered that the case would not be adjourned in future on the issue of condoning of delay. Earlier, Mr Faqir Chand Aggarwal, who led the team of lawyers appearing for Mr Rathore, requested the court that the case should be adjourned either for December 2 or December 9 so that Mr Dinesh Mathur, a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, could argue to oppose the CBI application.

The judge ordered that since the case was very old and required to be disposed of urgently, he would listen the arguments of Mr Mathur on December 2 at 11a.m.

The case was first called for around 11 a.m. but adjourned to 12-15 p.m. at the request of Mr Aggarwal because the reply of Mr Rathore to the CBI application was still awaited. When the case was taken up Mr Aggarwal sought the adjournment. Judge Tyagi asked him to argue himself since he was being assisted by Mr Adesh Kumar Jain, Mr J.S. Kohli and Mr Charanjit Kohli. But Mr Rathore’s counsel insisted that on their client’s behalf Mr Mathur would argue.

Though CBI counsel was initially reluctant to argue the application but later he agreed to do so by keeping his right to reply to Mr Mathur’s arguments on December 2.

Mr Sahai, who was assisted by Mr Rajbir Verma and Mr S.K. Sood, said the delay in filing the charge sheet should be condoned because Section 473 of the Cr.P. C. provided that a court may condone the delay if it was satisfied that the prosecution had explained the delay. The court could also condone the delay under this section if it felt that condoning the delay would be in the interest of justice.

He said the issues of delay and locus standi of the complainant, Mrs Madhu Prakash Anand, who was not related by blood to Miss Ruchika, whom Mr Rathore had allegedly molested on August 12, 1990, were agitated before the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had first ordered the CBI to investigate the charges. The High Court, he said, had considered these issues before ordering the CBI investigations.

Mr Sahai said the Supreme Court, which upheld the High Court orders, had also considered these issues because Mr Rathore in his special leave petition(SLP) had raised these objections.

When Mr Tyagi asked Mr Sahai if the issue of limitation as provided in Section 468 was specifically raised before the High Court and the Supreme Court, the CBI counsel replied in the negative but added that the issue was considered in general by the two courts.

Quoting from the High Court judgement in the Ruchika case, Mr Sahai said the court had said that offences against women were offences against society and hence Mrs Madhu Prakash had a right to take up the case against Mr Rathore. He said the State or the police could not sidetrack the investigation of an offence if it was discovered to have taken place.

Mr Sahai said if Sections 468 and 473 of the Cr.P.C. were read together, it was clear that Section 473, which empowered the court to condone the delay, had an overriding effect because it started with the phrase “notwithstanding anything contained in this code...” He said it was the duty of the State to register a case against Mr Rathore after the then DGP, Mr R.R. Singh, indicted Mr Rathore in his report.

He said there was no delay on the part of the CBI in filing the charge sheet, which it did within a year of the registration of the case. Tracing the history of the case from the date of the alleged molestation incident to its journey up to the Supreme Court, Mr Sahai said it could not be said that the delay had occurred due to any lethargy on the part of the complainant in pursuing the case.

In his written reply Mr Rathore said the laws of the limitation, which provided a right to a person not to be tried in a court of law, could not be given the go by in a mechanical and casual manner. The CBI in the present case had moved a very casual application claiming condonation of delay for taking cognisance, relying only on the order of the Supreme Court which had asked the CBI to investigate the charges.

He said it had nowhere been mentioned by the Supreme Court that its order amounted to condoning the delay in taking cognisance by a criminal court, which by itself was a judicial act. The Supreme Court, for obvious reasons, had not interfered with the discretion in respect of limitation which vested only in the court of a magistrate competent to try the accused or to take cognisance of the offence.

Asserting that there was no explanation for delay by the alleged victim or her family comprising her father, step-mother, brother and sister-in-law, Mr Rathore in his reply said no legal proceedings had been taken by Miss Ruchika or her family members till date and the present proceedings had been launched by a person who had no locus standi.

He said the motive of Mrs Madhu Prakash, who was a total stranger, in filing a writ petition before the High Court was vested interest. She had been summoned as an accused in the criminal defamation case filed by him(Mr Rathore) in 1991. The summons were served on her and her husband, Mr Anand Prakash, in 1997. Thereafter, the writ petition was filed as a counter blast to the criminal complaint.

Mrs Madhu Prakash, he said, had attributed the delay of seven years in filing the criminal writ petition to her failure in getting the inquiry report earlier. He said this ground, apart from being false, could not be made any ground for condoning the delay in instituting the legal proceedings. There was no legal requirement to get the inquiry report for filing a criminal case. In fact, under Section 91 of the Cr.P.C. , the courts had power to summon any record or document required in any criminal case.

Mr Rathore submitted that at the time of the alleged incident, he was posted as Director, Security in the Bhakra-Beas Management Board. After that he remained without posting from February 2, 1991, to March 24, 1991. In the next three years he was posted as IG, HSEB; IG, Home Guards, and IG, Telecommunication. The government had also instituted an inquiry against him.

Any trial to be conducted more than 10 years after the alleged incident would be very prejudicial to the respondent and was violative of Article 21`of the Constitution. Miss Ruchika was dead and the respondent had lost his valuable right to cross-examine her.

Alleging that he had been made a victim of a conspiracy, Mr Rathore said the conspirators included many professional rivals of him. He was also subject to a media trial. The press reporters and editors of newspapers had also been summoned as accused in the criminal defamation case filed by him. He also termed the R.R. Singh inquiry report and the CBI investigations as biased and unfair. The CBI had been leaking selective information to the press to prejudice the minds of the public and the judiciary

NEW DELHI, Nov 29 — The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) today gave approval to allow the Pushpa Gujral Science City Society to set up the Science City project at Jalandhar on their own.

Cabinet spokesperson and Union Minister Pramod Mahajan said when the Science City project at Jalandhar was approved by the CCEA, the central government had committed to provide technical services of the National Council of Science Museums to establish the project on a turnkey basis.

The Punjab Government has now requested that this MoU which was entered into between the society and NCSM be cancelled and the PGSC Society be allowed to do the project on its own.

Earlier, the Centre had allotted Rs 70 crore through the Department of Culture for setting up the Science City. The Science City would be constructed on 50 acres of land and the total built-up area would be 32,000 sq metres. The project would consist of among other things an environment and ecology park, economic plantations and a technology park. The completion time for the project would be three years. The Science City would be executed through the society, set up by the Punjab Government.

The CCEA also approved the continuance of the scheme for investment in debentures of state land development banks/state cooperative agriculture and rural development banks during the Ninth Five Year Plan. An outlay of Rs 595 crore is being provided for this scheme during the Ninth Plan. This decision would enhance the credit support for investment in agriculture in areas such as farm mechanisation, land development, horticulture and minor irrigation.

The CCEA also decided to continue the central cooperative scheme for cooperative training and education during the Ninth Plan. During the Plan period an outlay of Rs 73.91 crore has been provided for implementing this scheme.

Another decision taken by the CCEA was the approval to a proposal of HCL Technologies Ltd to issue American Depository Receipts up to $ 500 million subject to some conditions.