Chandigarh:
Nearly three weeks after the Centre's directive, former Haryana DGP S P S Rathore, sentenced to six month jail term for molesting Ruchika Girhotra, has returned the Police Medal awarded to him.
Rathore has returned the Police Medal to the DGP, who forwarded the same on Friday to Home Department "in a sealed cover for further necessary action," an official spokesman said.
It was not known immediately when Rathore surrendered the Police Medal to the state police following its cancellation and forfeiture by the Centre early this month.
"The President's Secretariat notification stated that the Police Medal for meritorious service awarded to Rathore vide this Secretariat notification dated August 15, 1985, is hereby cancelled and the medal is forfeited under Rule 8 of the rules governing the award of Police Medal," he added.
He said that intimation is being sent to Union Home Ministry regarding the Police Medal having been received back from the former disgraced DGP.
68-year-old Rathore, a 1965 batch IPS officer, who retired in 2002, was awarded a six month jail term by a CBI court on December 22, 2009, for molesting Ruchika, a budding tennis player in 1990.
Ruchika committed suicide three years later on December 28, 1993, and died the following day. Subsequently Rathore was booked in two other criminal cases after Ruchika's father Subhash Chander Girhotra and his son Ashu had filed two fresh complaints against Rathore accusing him of attempt to murder, wrongful confinement and forging of the post-mortem report of the victim.