New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday refused to transfer the two pending rape cases against suspended Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda’s grandson Prajwal Revanna, from the 81st Additional City Civil and Sessions Court, also known as the special court for MP-MLA cases, to any other sessions court in Bengaluru.
Revanna had raised concerns about the sessions court judge being biased on grounds that he had found him guilty in the previous rape case.
In August, Revanna was convicted of rape and handed a life term in the case of a 48-year-old woman working at the family’s Gannikada farmhouse in Hassan. She had also accused him of raping her at his Bassavnagudi home in Bengaluru.
On Thursday, the bench led by the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi dismissed his plea, ruling, “We have no reason to doubt that the learned Presiding Officer shall not be swayed by the fact that he found the petitioner guilty in an earlier case, and obviously, he shall evaluate the evidence in the pending trials and will confine his conclusions on the basis of the evidence led in the pending trials only.”
The court also recorded in its 11 December order: “No inference shall be drawn against the petitioner on the basis of the previous conviction or the evidence led in the trial which led to his conviction, more so, when the appeal by the petitioner is statedly pending before the High Court.” It further directed the Karnataka High Court to consider all of Revanna’s submissions and material given on record.
(Edited by Vidhi Bhutra)