8 Feb 2010, 0856 hrs IST

Chandigarh, India: A Chandigarh court will hear the plea of former Haryana Deputy General of Police, SPS Rathore against the 6-months sentence and conviction in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case.

The CBI had filed a counter appeal for the enhancement of the sentence.

The trial court had on December 21 sentenced Rathore to six months' rigorous imprisonment.

In the appeal, the CBI has questioned the leniency shown to Rathore and the short sentence given to him, which had allowed him to get bail immediately after the orders were pronounced.

As per provisions of law, the maximum punishment for molestation is a jail term of two years.

Rathore, who retired as Haryana's senior-most police officer in 2002, has asked that the abetment of suicide charge against him be dropped, because in the past, it has been rejected by the Supreme Court.

There are two other cases currently pending against Rathore, who is being defended in court by his wife, Abha. In both these cases, he has been granted bail. One accuses him of using his position as a senior police officer to put Ruchika's brother in jail on false charges. The other charges him with fabricating documents related to Ruchika's post-mortem.

After Ruchika accused Rathore of molesting her in 1990, he allegedly retaliated by persecuting her family and her. In 1993, the teenager drank poison and killed herself.

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