Ruchika case : School defends pirncipal Sebastina

Chandigarh: Even as a probe found the lady principal of Sacred Heart school of arbitrarily expelling Ruchika Girhotra, molested by a former top cop of Haryana, Chandigarh-Shimla Diocese, which runs the school, today ruled out punishing her, claiming she has done no wrong.

"Ruchika was not expelled, and there is no proof to suggest that. She herself had stopped coming to the school on her own and her name was struck off the rolls," Father Thomas, vicar-general and spokesman of the Diocese, said here.

He said there was no question of punishing the school principal Sister Sebastina, who continues to be the prestigious school's principal, when she was not at fault.

Ruchika, a 14-year-old budding tennis player, was molested by former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore in 1990, who had allegedly brought pressure on the school to expel her.

"She (has done no wrong and we stand by her. There is no sufficient basis on which the principal has been held guilty. The sub divisional magistrate (Prerna Puri who carried out the probe into Ruchika's expulsion), has taken convenient passages... there is no circumstantial evidence to suggest that principal was guilty of expelling her," he maintained.