Bengaluru: The 42nd Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court handed over custody of MP Prajwal Revanna, who is accused of rape, to a Karnataka Police Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Friday until June 6.
The conditions stipulate that he can meet his lawyers between 9.30 am and 11.30 am while he is in Bengaluru, but not when the SIT takes him out of the city for investigation-related work.
Prajwal Revanna, 33, the JD(S) MP from Hassan, was taken into custody at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru after arriving on a Lufthansa flight from Munich in the early hours of Friday. He had left the country on Apr. 27, a day after his Lok Sabha Constituency went to the polls, as videos allegedly showing him involved in sexual assault began circulating publicly.
On Friday morning, Prajwal underwent a medical examination at Bowring Hospital before being presented at the Special Court for People’s Representatives.
The SIT, investigating three cases of sexual assault against the MP, filed a remand application for 15 days of custody in the first case, registered on Apr. 28. This case was based on a complaint filed by a former domestic worker at the Revanna’s family residence.
In a packed Courtroom, the Judge at the Special Court for People’s Representatives in Bengaluru read out the orders around 4:30 pm. The SIT argued that it needed custody of Prajwal to collect evidence and recreate crime scenes at locations where the alleged sexual assaults took place.
Prajwal’s counsel argued that the complaint, filed four years after the alleged incident, was not filed voluntarily by the complainant and that charges of rape were not included in the original complaint but were added subsequently. The Special Court ruled that issues like the addition of the rape charge would have to be contested at the stage of the trial and allowed the SIT to take Prajwal into custody until June 6.
This post was published on June 1, 2024 7:41 pm