Chandigarh, June 29
Haryana’s former Director-General of Police SPS Rathore’s wife-cum-counsel Abha Rathore today alleged “hanky panky” in the listing of cases, as his appeal against conviction and sentence could not be taken up for detailed hearing. With this, it is clear that Rathore will remain behind bars for another few days, at least.

The verbal allegations were made after Rathore’s pleas in the Ruchika molestation case were listed before two different Benches — one of which was not even in a position to hear the case.

Appearing before the Division Bench of Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Ajay Tewari, a visibly agitated Abha Rathore mentioned, “Some hanky-panky was going on”. She asserted that it was a known fact that Justice Rajan Gupta, before whom the petitions for suspension of sentence was listed for hearing, had remained the CBI counsel. “How was the case fixed before him?” she orally questioned.

Abha asserted that while the sentence suspension plea was listed before Justice Gupta, the regular case was fixed before Justice Jitendra Chauhan. She added it was not known which Bench would eventually take up the plea, as it stood cancelled from Justice Gupta’s list.

After hearing Abha, the Bench directed both petitions should be placed before Justice Chauhan. The petitions will now come up for hearing on July 1.

Earlier during the day, Abha, appearing before Justice Gupta, said the case file was before his Bench, while the revision petition was scheduled to be taken up before Justice Jitendra Chauhan. As such, the file should be sent to the court.

Justice Gupta asked her to wait till the facts could be ascertained from the high court registry. She was then informed that the case before Justice Gupta had been cancelled. She then appeared before Justice Chauhan and asked for time to argue the matter after the court file was received.

After the directions by the Chief Justice, the petitions were placed before Justice Chauhan, who turned down Abha’s request to take up the case on June 30. She then requested the court to take up the case at 10 am on July 1. But the Bench made it clear that the case would be taken up according to the serial order.