On Wednesday, the Karnataka High Court rejected a petition by the former Janata Dal (Secular) parliamentarian Prajwal Revanna to suspend the life sentence that he was sentenced to in a rape case earlier this year. Revanna had gone to the court seeking to be suspended or put on interim bail pending an appeal against the conviction. Nevertheless, the High Court decided that the action of the case and the seriousness of the charges did not warrant any form of relief to him.
The order was given by a division bench of Justices KS Mudagal and Venkatesh Naik who were hearing Revanna challenging the verdict of a special court in Bengaluru. In August, the trial court had determined him guilty of raping a 48-year-old domestic worker that worked in his family on more than one occasion and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The survivor who was employed under an annual salary of 10,000 rupees and a bag of rice accused Revanna of month-long sexual exploitation.
The High Court declined this plea noting that the seriousness of the crime and the fact that Revanna was involved in several other cases of such nature played an important role. The bench reported that he still has three other FIRs of rape and sexual assault, which are still pending and that suspending his sentence now may affect the other cases. In view of the case material on record and its impact to other cases, the bench said this is not a fit case to award suspension of sentence and bail.
Another legal principle that the court elucidated on is the fact that once a conviction is made, one cannot assume innocence anymore. Thus, the parameters of bail being given to an undertrial cannot be used to a convict who wishes to have his sentence suspended.
Special Public Prosecutor Ravi Varma Kumar submitted that the release of Revanna would run a risk of witness tampering consideration that the survivors in the impending cases have weak socio-economic backgrounds.
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