Bhavani Revanna, the mother of rape accused Prajwal Revanna, who is alleged to be the main mastermind behind the kidnapping and forced confinement of a victim allegedly sexually assaulted by her son, may have been granted anticipatory bail by the Karnataka High Court, but the case is far from over, according to police sources.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) argued in court that Bhavani was the kingpin who not only planned the kidnapping and confinement of the victim but also used threats to dissuade her from filing a complaint against Prajwal.
Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Ravivarma Kumar, representing the SIT, argued against granting bail to Bhavani before the bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit, stating that she had tried every means to thwart justice.
Varma told the court that investigations revealed Bhavani had been the main brain behind contacting seven other victims of sexual assault and used various methods to prevent them from complaining against Prajwal.
One of the victims, allegedly sexually abused by Prajwal, whose horrific episode was recorded by Prajwal on his phone and later leaked on a pen drive in Hassan, was kidnapped and confined for days in a farmhouse belonging to the Revanna family in KR Nagara, Mysuru. She was allegedly mentally tortured and forced to retract her statement, but her miraculous escape and subsequent meeting with the police revealed what had happened.
The victim shared details of her alleged abuse by the MP and his family with the SIT, and it is based on this case and two other complaints that the SIT built a strong case against Prajwal Revanna, leading to his arrest.
The SIT registered three cases of sexual assault against Prajwal based on evidence found during investigations. In one of the cases, Prajwal is accused of raping a domestic help who worked in the Revanna household. After sex videos, including one where the domestic help was abused, were leaked to the public, Bhavani and her husband Revanna allegedly tried to hide the victim to save Prajwal from arrest.
“We are expecting more statements from victims, some of whom have bravely decided to come forward. They are committed to putting the accused behind bars for good, and we are working with them with much sensitivity,” revealed an SIT source.
Digital records and evidence have linked Bhavani to the conspiracy to silence the victims. Every attempt to mislead the investigation was made by her, said Varma, adding that “she had joined hands with the other accused (Revanna) in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy hatched by all of them to abduct and silence the victim.”
“The investigation has revealed that the petitioner (Bhavani) was monitoring the victims in an attempt to cover up the allegations against her son, who is accused of being a serial rapist. She has been trying to protect him from prosecution for the sexual assaults committed by him,” SPP Kumar told the court.
A special sessions court for elected representatives had on May 31 rejected Bhavani’s anticipatory bail plea, finding a prima facie case that Bhavani “had played a specific overt act” in the kidnapping case. However, the Karnataka High Court granted her anticipatory bail with the condition that she should not enter Mysuru and Hassan districts, but the SIT can take her to those districts for the probe.
Bhavani, her husband and former minister HD Revanna, and seven others are being investigated by the SIT under Section 364A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which amounts to kidnapping.
Bhavani’s counsel argued that the case filed against his client did not attract the non-bailable sections of kidnapping under the IPC and that arresting her amounted to “political vengeance.”
One of the prosecution’s arguments was that Bhavani had not been cooperating with the investigating agencies, and, therefore, her bail plea must be cancelled. However, the court observed that she had answered all 85 questions posed by the SIT during their investigation and that the “investigating agency cannot expect answers from her to the questions the way they framed,” the court said.
The SIT also issued a notice to her on June 1 to be present at her Bengaluru home for questioning about her links to the kidnap case. When the SIT team arrived at her house, she was nowhere to be found. The SIT sent teams to search for Bhavani, who, as Karnataka Home Minister Dr G Parmeshwara stated, had been ‘absconding’ and evading arrest. She later applied for anticipatory bail in the case, represented by her legal counsel.
Prajwal, a former MP from Hassan accused of sexually assaulting several women, was arrested on May 31 by a squad of police officers, including a special all-women team of the SIT, in a dramatic fashion. His father Revanna was arrested after a Special Court for Elected Representatives issued an arrest warrant based on the SIT’s application. He was arrested and jailed in the same kidnapping case and later released on May 14, having spent ten days behind bars.
Who is Bhavani Revanna?
Born to an agricultural family from Saligrama in Krishnarajanagara taluka of Mysore district, Bhavani married former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda’s son HD Revanna. They have two sons, Prajwal Revanna, the now-arrested former MP accused of sexually assaulting several women, and Suraj Revanna, an MLC.
Bhavani is said to have had considerable influence in the Deve Gowda family home in Hassan. Having watched politics closely with her father-in-law Deve Gowda, husband HD Revanna, and brother-in-law HD Kumaraswamy, she nursed aspirations for active politics. Her political ambitions intensified when her sister-in-law Anitha Kumaraswamy was given a JDS ticket from Madhugiri in 2008. She pressured her husband and senior Gowda to support her political ambitions, contested the Zilla Parishad elections in 2016, and won.
While she aspired to enter state politics, when Nikhil Kumaraswamy, her nephew and son of Kumaraswamy, was nominated by the party for the LS polls in 2019, an angry Bhavani demanded a seat each for her sons, Suraj and Prajwal. She ensured that her son Prajwal was launched by Deve Gowda from the former PM’s traditional Lok Sabha seat of Hassan.
Prajwal won this seat in 2019 but lost in the recently concluded 2024 LS polls. Deve Gowda, who gave his Hassan Lok Sabha seat to Prajwal and decided to contest from Tumakuru in 2019, unfortunately lost the election but was later nominated from Karnataka to the Rajya Sabha.
“Her family, especially the seniors, dissuaded her from contesting in the assembly elections, and she was seething each time. She ensured that her sons were given tickets, but every time she wanted to contest, she was pressured to stand back. She has held that grudge for a long time, but this case may have brought about a major pause in her aspirations for a political legacy or career,” said a Hassan-based JDS leader who did not want to be named told News18.
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