A court in Bengaluru on Monday discharged HD Revanna, a Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former Karnataka minister, from a case in which he was accused of sexually assaulting a domestic worker at his home in Hassan in 2020, Bar and Bench reported.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate KN Shivakumar noted that there had been a four-year delay on the part of the woman in filing the complaint. Neither the complainant nor the prosecution had provided a reasonable explanation for why the court should take cognisance of the case and condone the delay in lodging the complaint, the magistrate said, according to The Hindu.
A case of sexual assault and criminal intimidation was filed against HD Revanna and his son, former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, on April 28, 2024. HD Revanna was also accused of abducting the complainant a day after the first information report in the sexual assault case was filed.
HD Revanna was granted bail in both the sexual assault and abduction cases on May 13, 2024.
On November 19, the Karnataka High Court directed the magistrate court to decide whether the four-year delay by the woman in lodging the sexual harassment complaint could be disregarded and cognisance could be taken of the case.
On Monday, the additional chief judicial magistrate said that this was “not a fit case to condone the delay in lodging the complaint or initiation of prosecution”, Bar and Bench reported.
The magistrate refused to accept the prosecution’s contention that the delay occurred as the woman feared HD Revanna’s political power, The Hindu reported.
The court noted that the woman had stated in her complaint that after she quit her job at the former Karnataka minister’s home, a house that had been granted to her under a government scheme was demolished. The woman had filed a complaint with the Deputy Commissioner and the Hassan Police against Revanna in connection with the demolition , the magistrate noted.
“When she had no fear in approaching the Deputy Commissioner and the district police against…Revanna when her house was allegedly demolished at the instance of him, how come she had such a fear to lodge complaint…of alleged sexual harassment?” The Hindu quoted Shivakumar as asking.
The magistrate said that even if the woman could not complain from 2020 to 2022, when she was working at Revanna’s home, she could have done so after leaving the job in 2022. “But, for the reasons best known to her, she had not done so till April 2024,” The Hindu quoted the order as saying.
Prajwal Revanna was suspended from the Janata Dal (Secular) on April 30, 2024 after videos of alleged sexual assaults against several women surfaced just before the Lok Sabha election that year. He has since been booked in four different cases.
In August, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for raping the 48-year-old worker and recording the assault.
On Monday, the additional chief judicial magistrate referred to the case against Prajwal Revanna, and said that the serious allegation of rape against the Hassan MP may have led the woman to complain about HD Revanna as an afterthought, The Hindu reported.
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