"Just because you are Prajwal Revanna, the law cannot be bent for you," the Karnataka High Court said on Thursday, January 16, while dismissing a plea filed by the former MP seeking access to all electronic evidence in his case. Prajwal, a former Hassan MP and JD(S) leader, is accused of sexually assaulting five women, with most of the digital evidence in the case retrieved from his driver’s phone. While the court denied him copies of the records, it allowed him to inspect them, LiveLaw reported.
Justice M Nagaprasanna criticised Prajwal’s plea to access all images and videos on the device, noting, “If you (Revanna) are asking for information pertaining to other women, I’ll never allow that.”
The Court emphasised protecting the privacy of individuals not directly involved in the case, according to Bar and Bench.
Referring to the Supreme Court judgement in the ‘P Gopalkrishnan alias Dileep vs State of Kerala’ case, more commonly known as the Kerala actor assault case, Justice Nagaprasanna said that Prajwal Revanna could only inspect materials directly relevant to the case in which he is accused of sexually assaulting the domestic help.
“We will permit you to inspect the statements of the victim, photographs etc only in this case… only in accordance with the Gopalakrishna judgement [of the Supreme Court],” the court noted.
In the Kerala actor assault case, Dileep who is accused of masterminding the assault, went to the Supreme Court in 2019, seeking a copy of the memory card of the assault visuals. He went to the top court after the Kerala High Court and the trial court dismissed his plea. The Supreme Court, in that case, ruled that data stored on a memory card or pen drive, qualify as "documents" under the Indian Evidence Act and therefore must be disclosed to the accused under Section 207 CrPC. Dileep was allowed to view the visuals, but not given a copy of the memory card.
According to the police, around 70 women are seen in the videos and photographs which were allegedly recorded by Prajwal Revanna.
Additional Special Public Prosecutor BN Jagadeesha argued that Prajwal had already been provided with all materials relevant to the case under Section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code. He accused the former MP of attempting to prolong proceedings by seeking extraneous content.
Prajwal’s counsel argued, “I am not asking for all obscene material. Not everything (on that phone) is obscene.” Justice Nagaprasanna responded, “You say not everything is obscene... look at the pictures... there has to be some limit to obscenity. These are beyond being obscene.”
The Court also warned against attempts to misuse legal provisions. “Do not enlarge the scope of Section 207 (supply to the accused copy of police report and other documents) of the Criminal Procedure Code.. You are trying to put the clock back. Restrict your submissions to what you asked for and what was rejected (by the trial court),” Justice Nagaprasanna said.
Prajwal’s lawyers argued that it would cause prejudice to him if he was not allowed copies of the evidence. The court however said, "We will only permit you to inspect the images".
Prajwal’s petition was disposed of, with the High Court instructing the State to provide only the material Revanna is legally entitled to under Section 207 of CrPC.
Prajwal approached the High Court after the trial court on December 1 rejected his plea, filed under Section 207of CrPc, to provide him with copies of all the documents and electronic evidence against him compiled by the police.
Five women have accused Prajwal Revanna of varying degrees of sexual assault. The Special Investigating Team has filed three chargesheets against Prajwal. Key evidence against him includes DNA recovered from the clothing of the survivors, and forensic techniques which match the genitals in the images and videos to Prajwal Revanna’s body.
TNM has been continuously reporting on this case, speaking to survivors and others affected to explore the profound societal impact of the sexual abuse videos. Our coverage can be accessed here.