All Ruchika cases handed over to CBI

It's official. The CBI will now investigate SPS Rathore for driving to suicide the 14-year-old girl he molested.

This case, along with two others against Rathore, have been transferred from the Haryana police to the CBI.

Last month, Ruchika Girhotra's family filed three new complaints against Rathore, who was a senior policeman when he molested Ruchika in 1990. Three years after she filed a complaint against him, Ruchika killed herself by drinking poison. Evidence suggests that Rathore used his office to harass Ruchika and her family.  

The Home minister, P Chidambaram, had met Ruchika's family last month and reassured them that it would help them to fight new cases against Rathore. So far, the retired police officer has been found guilty of molesting Ruchika. He was sentenced to six months in prison, but is appealing against that verdict.

Rathore has applied for bail in the three new cases filed against them. In addition to abetment of suicide, he has been accused of framing Ruchika's brother and sending him to prison, and of tampering with documents related to Ruchika's post-mortem.  
 
An inquiry by the Chandigarh administration has concluded that Ruchika was expelled from her school in 1990 unfairly, and under pressure from "an external influence." The Sacred Heart Convent in Chandigarh had claimed that Ruchika had not paid her fees for several months, and that led to her name being taken off the school's rolls.  However, the inquiry finds that Ruchika was unfairly singled out. It points out that Rathore's own daughter, who was in the same school, had also defaulted on her fees, along with nearly 100 other students.

Ruchika's case has angered the country and its legal experts. Many believe it symbolizes the difficulty an average Indian faces in winning justice especially when pitted against a powerful and influential opponent. 

Despite the charges against him, Rathore was promoted by four different governments and finally retired as Haryana's most senior police officer in 2002. He is being defended in court by his wife, Abha, a lawyer. She has been arguing that Ruchika's family and friends unsuccessfully tried in the past to have more serious charges like abetment to suicide brought against Rathore. The Supreme Court had dismissed these charges, and so, she says, Rathore should not be tried again for this.