New Delhi , April 2: The government proposes to halve the pension benefits of former Haryana director-general of police S.P.S. Rathore, who has been convicted in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case. Government sources said a decision to reduce his pension by half had been taken, and the Union home ministry had sent the proposal to the Union Public Service Commission for its approval.
Rathore is also being stripped of his Police Medal for meritorious service. President Pratibha Patil is understood to have given her assent to the home ministry’s recommendation that the President withdraw the medal awarded in 1985 on grounds of “moral turpitude” and for “bringing disrepute or disrespect” to the service he belonged to following his conviction.
The sources said the decision to cut his pension by half was taken after he failed to respond to showcause notices which had been issued to him. “We have recommended that Rathore’s pension be halved. The UPSC has to take a final view on it,” a senior government official told this newspaper. The home ministry had earlier issued showcause notices to Rathore asking him why his Police Medal should not be taken away and his pension reduced for allegedly abusing power.
The home ministry approached the President for stripping Rathore of his medal following a recommendation to that effect by the Central Police Awards Committee, which is headed by home secretary G.K. Pillai.
Rathore, a 1965-batch IPS officer who retired in 2002, was awarded the Police Medal for Meritorious Service on August 15, 1985. He was, however, never considered for the President’s Police Medal following an internal report by the Intelligence Bureau. The disgraced police officer has been sentenced by a court to six months in jail for molesting 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra in 1990. Ruchika later committed suicide in 1993.
The relatively light sentence for Rathore had led to a furore, which forced the government to take several steps, including a direction to the CBI to appeal against the verdict and seek maximum punishment (two years in jail) for the accused.
Namrata Biji Ahuja