It was the Karnataka High Court’s dismissal on Friday of a plea filed by former MP Prajwal Revanna’s mother Bhavani Revanna, seeking a stay on her son’s trial in a rape case filed against him in 2024, that cleared the way for the commencement of the trial.
The trial in one of the four rape cases registered against Prajwal in 2024 finally got underway on Friday with the recording of the statement of the rape survivor in a special court for elected representatives in Bengaluru.
The statement of the survivor, who worked as a domestic help at the farmhouse of the former MP when she was allegedly sexually assaulted, was recorded during in-camera proceedings in the special court.
Earlier, Bhavani had approached the Karnataka High Court on May 1, seeking a stay on the commencement of the trial, which had been fixed for May 2 by the special court. The writ petition was filed on the grounds that the special court had not provided copies of orders by a principal judge for the continuance of the trial in the special court after Prajwal’s advocate sought a transfer of the case.
The plea also said that the trial should be deferred to allow her son to engage a full-fledged defence advocate instead of a state-appointed counsel following the withdrawal of Prajwal’s counsel, M G Arun, on April 23.
Justice Vishwajit Shetty of the Karnataka High Court, however, dismissed Bhavani’s plea and stated that he would issue a detailed order.
When the trial commenced in the special court, the rape survivor, who was the first court witness and prosecution witness, narrated the account of her ordeal to the court.
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Prajwal is accused in four cases of rape that emerged after videos of multiple alleged sexual assaults surfaced in the public domain ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls where he, a JD(S) candidate, was defeated by a Congress candidate in Hassan.
In the first case where the trial commenced on Friday, Prajwal has been accused of raping a woman while “being in a position of control or dominance” under Indian Penal Code Section 376 (2) (k)), of sexual harassment, and criminal intimidation of the victim.
The case was registered on the basis of a complaint filed by a middle-aged woman on May 8, 2024, after she was rescued from a farmhouse near Mysuru on May 5, where she was allegedly kept in confinement after being identified in videos of sexual assaults recorded by the MP on his mobile phone.
Prajwal was arrested on May 31, 2024, following his return from Germany, where he had fled after the videos of the alleged sexual assaults emerged in the public domain on April 26, 2024.
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A chargesheet running into 1,632 pages and backed by 113 witnesses was filed in the case in December 2024 by an SIT constituted to investigate the rape cases against the MP.