Thaindian News

Chandigarh, April 23 (IANS) Disgraced former Haryana police chief S.P.S. Rathore has been stripped of the president’s medal he had received for meritorious service, police said here Friday.
“The Haryana government has received back the police medal which was awarded to Shambhu Pratap Singh Rathore, IPS (Retd) for meritorious service as the same has been cancelled and forfeited,” a spokesman of Haryana Police said.

The spokesman said a lady police officer was sent to Rathore’s residence in Panchkula, adjoining Chandigarh, and he was asked to physically hand over the medal Thursday.

Rathore was convicted by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court here December last year in the molestation case of teenaged budding tennis player Ruchika Girhotra.

The court held Rathore guilty for molesting the 15-year-old Ruchika in Panchkula town in August 1990. She committed suicide three years later.

He was sentenced to six months’ rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs.1,000 in the 19-year-old molestation case. Rathore was granted bail immediately after his conviction.

Rathore continues to be on bail as he has challenged his conviction in the court.

The spokesman said: “The state government had received a written communication from the union home ministry forwarding a President’s Secretariat Notification No.32-Pres/2010 dated March 11, 2010 regarding cancellation and forfeiture of police medal for meritorious service awarded to Rathore, the then deputy inspector general of police, administration and training under rule 8 of the rules governing the award of police medal.”

The communication of the union home ministry further stated that “the medal may be taken back from the individual and kept in safe custody under intimation to the ministry”.

A section of the Haryana police officers had questioned the taking back of the medal from Rathore saying that it had been given to him in 1985 whereas the molestation incident took place in 1990 and both things had no link.