"Law Can't Be Bent": Karnataka HC On Prajwal Revanna's Plea For Digital Files
Karnataka: Karnataka High Court on Thursday (January 16) dismissed a plea filed by the former Janata Dal (Secular) MP Prajwal Revanna seeking access to all electronic evidence in his rape and sexual assault case. Criticising Prajwal’s plea, Justice M Nagaprasanna said that he will not give information pertaining to other women to former MP.
When Prajwal’s counsel held that the images or digital evidence sought to be examined by him are not necessarily obscene, the judge said: “The images here even of the victim are obscene. Just because you are Prajwal Revanna, the law can’t be bent for you,” Bar and Bench reports.
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Revanna, son of former minister HD Revanna and grandson of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, is accused of sexually assaulting four women with most of the digital evidence in the case has collected from his driver’s phone.
Citing Supreme Court judgement in the the Kerala actor assault case (P Gopalakrishnan vs the State of Kerala), Justice Nagaprasanna said that Prajwal Revanna could only inspect materials directly relevant to the case in which he is alleged 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 judgement in P Gopalakrishnan vs the State of Kerala,” the Court said.
In the actor assault case, actor Dileep who is accused of orchestrating the assault, went to the Supreme Court in 2019, requesting a copy of the memory card of the assault visuals. He reached the apex court after the trial court and Kerala High Court dismissed his petition. In the case, Supreme Court held that data stored on a memory card or pen drive, categorised as “documents” under the Indian Evidence Act and hence, it must be disclosed to the accused under Section 207 CrPC. Though Dileep can view the visuals, he is not given a copy of the memory card.
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The Court also said that while Revanna is permitted to receive copies of evidence in relation to his cases, they will not permit anything that might disclosed the identities of victims other than the complainant in the case before the trial court, Bar and Bench reports.
On August last year, the Special Investigating Team (SIT), which is investigating sexual assault and harassment against Revanna, submitted a 2,144-page-long chargesheet concerning the first in the four cases, before the special court which handles cases relating to legislators.
