New Delhi: When a Delhi court acquitted former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on 3 August, it said the prosecution had “miserably failed” to prove the sexual harassment allegations beyond reasonable doubt.
The case, which had sparked nationwide protests by top Indian wrestlers, involved allegations from six female wrestlers ranging from groping, inappropriate touching, forced physical contact and, in one instance, demanding sexual favours in exchange for medical assistance.
The court said the evidence was riddled with what it described as “material contradictions”, “factual impossibilities” and signs of a “politically motivated” conspiracy.
The verdict turned on the evidence—or, more precisely, on what the court found were serious problems with it.
The judge pointed to contradictions in the complainants’ earliest accounts, official records that he said made some alleged incidents factually impossible, two complainants who later turned hostile, and similarities in the complaints that the court viewed as evidence of tutoring and prior planning.
The five complainants
The chargesheet detailed numerous incidents involving five primary complainants, spanning 2016 to 2022.
The first complainant alleged Singh groped her breast and stomach in a restaurant in Mongolia in 2016; inappropriately touched her palm, knee, thighs, and shoulders at the WFI office on 16 October 2017; pressed her shoulders, touched her legs, and groped her breasts at the WFI office on 17 October 2017; hugged her tightly for 15-20 seconds at Siri Fort Stadium in January 2018 and the Jakarta Asian Games in August 2018; and inappropriately touched her breasts and stomach in Kazakhstan in 2019.
The second complainant alleged Singh pulled up her T-shirt and touched her stomach/navel in Bulgaria in August 2022, and later demanded sexual favours in exchange for sponsoring her medical treatment.
The third complainant alleged Singh pulled up her T-shirt and groped her breast in Kyrgyzstan in February 2018 and later pulled her towards him and made forceful physical contact at the WFI office in June 2019.
The fourth complainant alleged Singh touched or groped her buttocks during a group photograph session at Lucknow’s SAI Stadium on 25 March 2022.
The fifth complainant alleged Singh forcibly pulled her towards him by the shoulders for a picture and threatened her professional reputation in Bellari in Karnataka in March 2021.
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The ‘fatal’ Mongolia & Turkey contradictions
One of the primary complainants alleged several incidents of molestation. The first was alleged to have occurred in Mongolia in 2016, where, she claimed, Brij Bhushan groped her at a restaurant while she was dining.
However, the court ruled this allegation out due to a massive inconsistency in her prior statements.
In an earlier affidavit filed before an Oversight Committee in February 2023, the victim had stated the incident occurred in Turkey in 2015, not Mongolia in 2016.
The court noted that such a shift in the version regarding the very first incident “is fatal to the prosecution story” and “does not inspire the confidence of this court”.
She also alleged that on 16 and 17 October 2017, she was molested inside Brij Bhushan’s office at his residence in New Delhi. She claimed that during a meeting regarding a show-cause notice, he touched her thighs, legs and shoulders inappropriately.
The court rejected this claim based on a plea of alibi that was supported by the prosecution’s own witnesses.
Evidence provided by one of the witnesses and corroborated by Facebook posts showed that Brij Bhushan was actually in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh on those specific dates for a selection trial.
The court observed that since Singh’s presence in Delhi was impossible at the relevant time, the allegation collapsed. Furthermore, the court noted that the victim had materially altered the date of the incident from 15 October, a Sunday when the office is closed, to 16 October to make the story more believable.
Factual impossibilities in Kyrgyzstan
Another complainant alleged that during the Asian Championship in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 2018, Brij Bhushan approached her while she was warming up and placed his hand on her chest and stomach under the pretext of checking her breath.
The defense successfully refuted this by producing the official tournament schedule. The victim claimed the harassment happened during her bouts on 28 February 2018. However, official records showed her category bouts were actually scheduled for 1 March 2018.
The court ruled that her testimony suffered from “factual impossibilities” and was “wholly unsafe to rely upon”.
Victims claim pressure to frame Singh
The prosecution’s case suffered its most devastating blow when two key victims “resiled from their earlier statements” and were declared hostile.
In her cross-examination, one had explicitly stated that “no untoward incident had taken place with her” and that she had signed the original complaint “under the pressure and on behest of two other complainants. She claimed she was told that if they didn’t remove “Netaji” (Brij Bhushan), the future of wrestlers from Haryana would be spoiled.
Another complainant had detailed a meeting at Mahadev Academy in Rohtak where five or six women wrestlers were tutored on what to say against Brij Bhushan.
She admitted the complaint was drafted in English—a language she didn’t understand—and she was asked to memorise it. She told the court that Brij Bhushan had never harassed her and the entire story about him pulling her for a photo in Karnataka was fabricated.
The judgement highlighted that many of the victims shared the same address (that of one complainant) in their complaints, despite not living there. The court inferred that the witnesses were “tutored” to ensure their stories matched.
Furthermore, it referred to the lack of retaliation or immediate complaint from family members as “strange and abnormal”.
Siri Fort & Jakarta: Public places & no witnesses
Allegations regarding incidents at Siri Fort Stadium in 2018 and the Asian Games in Jakarta in 2018 were also dismissed. A complainant claimed she was forcibly hugged for 15-20 seconds in full public view.
The court said it found this “highly unnatural and improbable” that such acts could occur in a crowded stadium with family, media and coaches present without anyone intervening or the victim raising an alarm.
For the Jakarta incident, the court noted that the hug occurred in a “celebratory” moment after a gold medal win and that photographs showed “natural emotion” rather than discomfort.
The omission of these serious allegations from the victim’s earliest versions made the subsequent inclusion appear what the court described as “dubious and false”.
Ultimately, the court held that the version given by the hostile victims completely discredited the prosecution case and exposed that the allegations were “fabricated made collectively” at the instance of two complainants and the coaches of Mahadev Academy in “deep conspiracy which seems to be motivated politically”.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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The high court ruling vindicated Brij Bhushan’s assertions that this was a politically motivated case. The man has protested his innocence all throughout – despite the mainstream media tarnishing him and his family.
He was made out to be a monster, a mafia boss, a gangster and what not. Shrill TV news anchors declared him to be the very personification of evil.
Hope he has the strength to rebuild his career and reputation now.