Former JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna Convicted of Rape Charges, Quantum of Punishment on Saturday
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 1: Former Janata Dal (Secular) member of the Lok Sabha Prajwal Revanna, the grandson of the former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, was convicted of raping his house help by the special court for MPs/MLAs in Bengaluru on Friday.
He was accused of repeatedly raping his maid and recording videos of the same. The court said it would announce the quantum of punishment against Revanna on Saturday. A woman who worked as a domestic help at Revanna’s family’s farmhouse accused Revanna of repeatedly raping her since 2021 and threatening to release videos of the abuse if she revealed the incidents to anyone.
The court, which concluded hearings in the matter on July 18, had deferred the judgment on July 30, citing the need for certain clarifications and delivered the order on Friday. During the trial, the court examined Revanna, who was arrested on May 31 last year, and all 26 witnesses. It then framed charges against him under various sections, including rape, voyeurism, criminal intimidation, and unlawful circulation of intimate images.
Senior advocates Ashok Nayak and B.N. Jagadeesha were special public prosecutors in the case. Judge Santosh Gajanan Bhat presided over the trial.
In April this year, the court had framed charges against Revanna for offences under provisions of the IPC, such as rape of a woman by a person who is in a dominant position or a position of control, repeatedly raping a woman, outraging modesty, assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe, voyeurism, criminal intimidation, causing the disappearance of evidence of a crime.
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He was also charged with the offence under Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, 2008, as per which, an individual is punished for violating the privacy of a person, such as circulating private messages without consent.
Prajwal has three rape cases and one sexual harassment case against him and this is the first case in which trial has been completed. The victim in the case is a 48-year-old former help at the Revanna family’s farmhouse in Gannikada in Hassan district’s Holenarasipura. She was allegedly raped twice in 2021 and the act recorded by the accused on his mobile phone. She alleged that she was repeatedly raped by him, and the first such incident took place around 2021 during the COVID lockdown. She had claimed that she could not dare to speak out about the incident as he had filmed the crime and threatened to put out online.
She eventually left her job and remained silent until news of the leak of those videos surfaced. Over 2,900 videos showing the sexual assault of several women were circulated online, including on social media, prompting her to register a complaint last year. This led to four cases eventually being registered against the former MP.
As he faced criticism, he fled to Germany soon after the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections in Karnataka. He was arrested as he returned to India on May 31 last year. He has been in jail since then.
The SIT, which investigated the case, filed its charge-sheet in August last year.
In response to it, Revanna filed a plea to relieve him of all charges, claiming that there was not enough evidence against him in the case. Revanna’s lawyer said the serious accusations against him were not true and were made to damage his image. Revanna also questioned why the alleged rape was reported so late, since the first incident was said to have happened in 2021.
However, the SIT argued that four volumes of materials have been collected against the accused and said the videos of sexual assault were proven to be authentic after forensic analysis. On April 3, the court dismissed the former MP’s discharge application after finding that there was sufficient material to frame charges against him and carry out the trial.
The SIT filed a 1,632-page charge-sheet with 113 witnesses in the case in September 2024. Prajwal was booked under Sections 376(2)(k) (being in a position of control or dominance over a woman, commits rape on such woman), 376(2)(n) (repeated rape on the same woman) of the Indian Penal Code, and 66E (violation of privacy) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, among other sections.
The charge-sheet alleged that the victim was raped by the accused twice in 2021 — once at the family’s Hassan residence and a few days later at the family’s Bengaluru residence in Basavanagudi. The accused allegedly recorded the video in the first instance. In the video, recovered by the SIT, the victim is reportedly seen resisting the advances and crying and breaking down. Though Prajwal’s face is not visible in the video, forensic analysis report indicates that it was him in the video. Moreover, the victim had kept her saris in a wardrobe where she was working analysis found Prajwal’s DNA on one of them. These formed key evidences in the case, sources said.
Four separate cases have been registered against Prajwal Revanna, who is facing charges of rape and sexual harassment, and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed to probe the cases against him. Revanna, 34, is also facing three other criminal cases that were filed in 2024, after over 2,000 obscene video clips — allegedly depicting the sexual abuse of multiple women — surfaced on social media. In one of the cases, which was filed by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on May 1, he is accused of repeatedly raping a 44-year-old former member of the Hassan Zilla Panchayat.
The other case pertains to the rape of a woman, in her 60s, from Mysuru, who was also a domestic help. Another case was registered against Revanna, accusing him of sexual harassment, on June 12 in Bengaluru. In this case, he has been charged with sexual harassment, stalking and criminal intimidation, and violation of the privacy of the IT Act. The complainant said she was sexually harassed over a video call. Revanna was elected to Parliament for the first time from the Hassan Lok Sabha seat in 2019. However, he failed in his bid to retain the constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. JD(S) suspended him from the party following the rape cases filed against him.
Prajwal Revanna is the grandson of former Prime Minister and JD (S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda. His father, H D Revanna, is a sitting MLA and has previously held a ministerial position. His mother, Bhavani Revanna, has served on the Hassan Zila Panchayat. His brother, Suraj Revanna, is a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC), while his uncle, H D Kumaraswamy, is a JD(S) leader and former Chief Minister of Karnataka. The JD(S) is allied with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Karnataka.
Two more FIRs were filed against him and his father HD Revanna in May, last year for rape and kidnapping in addition to the first FIR of rape against Prajwal. In the first of the two fresh FIRs, both Prajwal and Revanna have been booked based on a complaint of sexual harassment by a woman on April 28. In her complaint, the survivor has accused them of “coercing her to have a sexual relationship” with Prajwal. Based on this complaint, the SIT invoked Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (for sexual assault) against the Hassan MP. A lookout notice has also been issued against Prajwal, who has fled the country.
The second FIR has alleged that Satish Babbana, a close aide of Revanna, allegedly kidnapped a former house help at the behest of Revanna twice. Raju, the help’s son and complainant, said she was among the several victims seen in the alleged sex tapes released in pen drives.
In the complaint letter, Raju alleged that Babanna, hailing from K R Nagar in Mysuru, came to their house earlier last month and forcibly took his mother to Holenarasipura in Hassan, claiming that Revanna and Bhavani had summoned her. Babanna allegedly dropped his mother back on April 26. “He told my parents not to tell anything to the police. He threatened us that we would be booked in a case and told us to alert him if the police came by.”
But Babanna returned on April 29, a few days before the Lok Sabha elections. “He told us that if my mother is caught by the police, a case would be registered and all of us would go to jail. He claimed that Revanna had told him to bring my mother along. He forced my mother into accompanying him on his bike,” Raju’s complaint said.
The complainant said that he later got to know that a video of his mother being raped by Prajwal was doing the rounds. They told me that despite my mother pleading to be spared, Prajwal had raped her. Raju said his mother worked as a help at Revanna’s farmhouse for over six years. She later left her job at the house and returned to her hometown three years ago. “Every attempt is being made to trace the elderly woman, who her son says is ‘kidnapped’, so she doesn’t testify against Prajwal,” said Karnataka police.
