Sexual assault case against HD Revanna discharged by Bengaluru court
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A Bengaluru court on Monday discharged Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former Karnataka minister HD Revanna in a case related to the alleged sexual assault of a domestic worker at his residence in Hassan in 2020, according to reports by Bar and Bench.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate KN Shivakumar observed that there was a delay of nearly four years in filing the complaint. The court noted that neither the complainant nor the prosecution had offered a satisfactory explanation for the delay or justified why the court should take cognisance of the case at such a late stage, The Hindu reported.
An FIR accusing HD Revanna and his son, former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, of sexual assault and criminal intimidation was registered on April 28, 2024. HD Revanna was also accused of abducting the woman a day after the sexual assault case was filed. He was granted bail in both matters on May 13, 2024, Scroll.in reported.
Earlier, on November 19, the Karnataka High Court had directed the magistrate court to examine whether the delay in filing the complaint could be condoned and whether the case warranted proceeding further. On Monday, the magistrate ruled that the case did not merit condoning the delay or initiating prosecution.
The court also rejected the prosecution’s argument that the delay was due to the woman’s fear of Revanna’s political influence. The magistrate pointed out that the complainant herself had stated that after she left her job at Revanna’s house, a home allotted to her under a government housing scheme was demolished. The court noted that she had approached the Deputy Commissioner and the Hassan police against Revanna in connection with that demolition.
The magistrate questioned how the woman could have felt confident enough to complain to senior district authorities and the police regarding the demolition, yet claimed to be too fearful to report the alleged sexual harassment earlier. The order further observed that even if she was unable to complain while working at Revanna’s home between 2020 and 2022, she could have approached authorities after leaving the job, but did not do so until April 2024.
Referring to the separate case against Prajwal Revanna, the magistrate noted that the serious allegations of rape against the former MP may have prompted the woman to file the complaint against HD Revanna as an afterthought, The Hindu reported.
Prajwal Revanna was suspended from the JD(S) on April 30, 2024, after videos allegedly showing sexual assaults on several women surfaced ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. He has since been named in four different cases and, in August, was sentenced to life imprisonment for raping the 48-year-old domestic worker and recording the assault.