M A I N   N E W S

Show-cause notice to Haryana
Compensation to Ruchika’s brother
By Our Legal Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, Dec 8 — Mr S.P.S. Rathore, the Haryana DGP who has been forced to proceed on leave, suffered another setback today when taking suo motu cognisance of a report in a section of the press and judgement in the Ashu Girhotra case, Mr Justice Mehtab Singh Gill of the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued notices to the state of Haryana, Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, the SHO, Panchkula, posted at the Sector 5 police station between September 6, 1992, and August 30, 1993, and Mr Rathore to show cause why they should not be burdened with compensation to be paid to Ashu Girhotra, who was falsely implicated in six cases of theft.

According to the Judge, Ashu Girhotra, a 14-year-old at that time, was tortured, humiliated and terrorised, who would never, out of fear, come forward to claim compensation from the state of Haryana.

Ashu Girhotra is the brother of Ruchika Girhotra, the complainant against Mr Rathore. Out of six FIRs registered against him he was discharged in four cases at the stage of framing of charges, as no prima facie case was made out and it was observed in one case that “not even an iota of evidence is there against the accused Ashu and Sandeep”. Similar remarks were made in other cases. It is just a waste of paper there is nothing on the record to prove their involvement” observed the trial court in another case.

The above judgements were delivered by the trial court after the challan was put up.

The Judge observed that after going through the judgements, it comes out that there was a conscious and deliberated attempt to falsely implicate Ashu Girhotra and Sandeep by the police officials who were at that time posted at Panchkula police station. These police officials, it seemed were let loose on the teen-aged boys by Rathore against whom an FIR had been lodged under Section 354, IPC by the sister of Ashu, Ruchika. Life was made difficult for Ashu. He was terrorised by the police, so that he would persuade his sister to withdraw the complaint.

The Judge directed the Registry to register the report as writ petition and fix it before a Bench after obtaining an order from the Chief Justice.