A Bengaluru court on Monday, December 29, discharged Janata Dal (Secular) MLA and former Karnataka minister HD Revanna from a sexual assault case involving a domestic worker.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate KN Shivakumar ruled that the complaint, filed four years after the alleged incident, could not be entertained as neither the complainant nor the prosecution offered a satisfactory explanation for the delay. The magistrate observed that condoning a delay of more than three years was not necessary, cautioning that doing so could lead to “unwanted delay and multiplicity of proceedings” in the more serious rape cases pending against Prajwal Revanna before the sessions court.
The domestic worker had accused Revanna of sexually assaulting her at his Hassan residence in 2020. A case of sexual assault and criminal intimidation was registered against Revanna and his son, former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, on April 28, 2024. Revanna was also booked for allegedly abducting the complainant a day after the FIR was filed. He 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 to first decide whether the four-year delay in lodging the complaint could be condoned. On Monday, the magistrate concluded that it was “not a fit case” to overlook the delay, according to Bar and Bench.
The court also dismissed the prosecution’s argument that the complainant had been too afraid of Revanna’s political influence to approach the police earlier. Citing her earlier actions, the magistrate noted that the woman had complained to the Deputy Commissioner and Hassan police when a house allotted to her under a government scheme was allegedly demolished at Revanna’s instance.
“When she had no fear in approaching the Deputy Commissioner and the district police when her house was allegedly demolished, how come she had such a fear to lodge a complaint of alleged sexual harassment?” the magistrate said.
Shivakumar added that even if the woman felt unable to file a complaint while employed at Revanna’s home between 2020 and 2022, she could have done so after leaving the job. “But, for the reasons best known to her, she had not done so till April 2024,” the order stated.
Prajwal Revanna was suspended from the JD(S) on April 30, 2024, after videos of alleged sexual assaults surfaced ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. He has since been convicted in one case. Four cases, including three for rape and one for sexual harassment, were registered against him in 2024 after hundreds of videos allegedly showing sexual assaults on several women surfaced online.
