Mind the Gap: How justice was served with Prajwal Revanna’s conviction
Revanna has been sentenced to life in prison for rape. Here’s what makes this case a welcome aberration from a trend where powerful men get away with impunity.
The big story
It is said he wept after his conviction, that he begged the judge to go easy on him, that he was innocent, a victim of a “political conspiracy”, that he was only 34, a good student.
Unmoved, justice Santosh Gajanan Bhat sentenced Prajwal Revanna, the former member of Parliament (MP) from Hassan, Karnataka, to life imprisonment for his crime of raping an employee, a 48-year-old woman, hired as a labourer by his family on a salary of ₹10,000 and a bag of rice a month.
Life imprisonment meant the remainder of his natural life, the judge clarified. Prajwal, often seen sporting diamond solitaire studs in the past, has also been asked to pay ₹11.6 lakh as a fine, of which ₹11.25 lakh will go to the survivor.
Prajwal is no ordinary criminal. He was standing trial in a special court set up for elected representatives. His grandfather, HD Deve Gowda is a former prime minister of India. His father, HD Revanna is an MLA and a former minister. His uncle, HD Kumaraswamy is a former chief minister of Karnataka. His mother, Bhavani Revanna is a former member of the zila panchayat and his brother, Sooraj is an MLC.
Janata Dal (Secular), the party founded by Deve Gowda, is a coalition partner of the BJP. During the 2024 general election, just days before Prajwal’s crimes went viral, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally campaigned for Prajwal.
His conviction and sentencing is the first of four rape cases filed against him. Legal experts expect him to appeal in a higher court.
Not an ordinary criminal, not an ordinary crime
On the eve of the 2024 general elections where Prajwal was recontesting from Hassan, pen drives containing hundreds of videos of different women being sexually assaulted and raped were dumped in bus stands and other public places. Although the man’s face was not visible, his voice could be heard.
Rumours of Prajwal’s sexual depravity had been in circulation for a while. When the videos went viral, he fled to Germany. On his return on May 31, reportedly on his grandfather’s instructions, he was arrested.
A Special Investigation Team set up by the Congress-led Karnataka government identified 70 women in the video. Yet, when it came to testifying and filing charges, only four came forward.
When she learned that the videos had been leaked and had gone viral, the 48-year-old woman’s first reaction was to kill herself, the special public prosecutor told the court. Her family, including two daughters, a son, and a son-in-law prevailed upon her to seek justice. “They were steadfast in their support,” special public prosecutor, Ashok Naik told me on the phone. “It becomes very difficult for the victim to show her face, go to work in other people’s home, because of the way society views them.”
Often breaking down in tears, the woman described how Prajwal had raped her on two occasions between 2020 and 2021, once at the Gowda family farm in Gannikada and once after Prajwal’s mother, Bhavani had asked her to clean the family house at Basavanagudi. She was able to thwart a third attempt at Gannikada but was so traumatized that she quit her job, not stopping even to take her few clothes from the farmhouse quarter where she lived. She did not complain because she was aware of her rapist’s clout.
In 2024 when the videos went viral, the woman told the court of how she was taken first to Bhavani’s house and then to a farmhouse at Hunsur where she was kept captive but, fortunately, managed to escape. Bhavani faces abetment charges and is at present out on bail.
The judgment acknowledges the woman’s fortitude and how she was targeted by Prajwal because she was vulnerable and dependent on his family for survival. It finds her testimony, including why she didn’t immediately complain, credible.
Important lessons
Questions remain. Who leaked the videos and what action will be taken against those who have violated the privacy of survivors, including the 48-year-old who has had to move out of her village?
And yet, the judgement sends out important messages to survivors of sexual assault. The first is the necessity of a speedy trial conducted with efficiency, including witness corroboration and scientific forensic investigation in building a water-tight case.
The trial tells us of the importance of structural support to survivors of sexual violence, starting with the family and extending to police, prosecutors and judges as she testifies in court.
It reminds us that the law applies to all, in theory and on the ground. Confidence has been bruised in the recent past. Powerful men like former Wrestling Federation head Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh are rarely held to account. If they are, as in the case of Kuldeep Singh Senger, former BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh, then the price of justice on survivors is unacceptably high.
Prajwal Revanna’s conviction must be welcomed as an aberration to this trend of impunity by powerful men. Quoting Lord Denning, “Be ye ever so high, the law is higher than ye,” justice Bhat has restored some measure of faith in the common citizen’s expectation of justice even when the man she accuses comes belongs to an influential political dynasty.
And perhaps the judgment reminds us that the problem of sexual violence is systemic. This is not about one man. It’s about the feudal politics that persist in a modern nation. It’s about patriarchy’s skewed power equations that grant protection to sexual predators. It’s about a constitutional promise made 75 years ago to the women of this country that they are equal citizens with equal rights to life, justice, and dignity.
