Karnataka High Court grants anticipatory bail to Bhavani Revanna

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to Bhavani Revanna in a kidnapping case linked to the sexual abuse allegations against her son and suspended Janata Dal (Secular) leader, Prajwal Revanna. .Justice Krishna S Dixit pronounced the order this morning when he also urged that there should not be any media trial of the case and said that unnecessary arrests of women should be avoided. .Justice Dixit informed that he has dealt elaborately with all the arguments raised by the State against the grant of anticipatory bail to Bhavani Revanna. The judge added that he has also emphasised that a woman should not be unnecessarily arrested in criminal cases, more so since in India, they are epicenters of the family. The Court added that it is unconvinced by the State's allegation that Bhavani Revanna has not been cooperating with the probe. Justice Dixit noted that Bhavani Revanna has answered all 85 questions posed to her during interrogation, adding that the police cannot expect her to answer in one way or the other. Notably, the State had earlier claimed that Bhavani Revanna had given false answers to questions and tried to mislead the investigation. The Court rejected this argument today. .The Court had earlier granted Bhavani Revanna interim anticipatory bail subject to several conditions, including that he does not enter or hover around the Mysore and Hassan districts where the crime is alleged to have happened. The Court today made final the interim anticipatory bail earlier granted while reiterating that she cannot enter Mysore or Hassan district except for the purpose of investigation..Bhavani Revanna is accused of being involved in kidnapping a woman who was sexually assaulted by Prajwal Revanna. This was allegedly done to prevent the woman from filing a complaint.Prajwal Revanna is presently under arrest in connection with allegations that he sexually assaulted several women and captured visuals of the assault.Last month, visuals of the assault, captured in over 2,900 videos, surfaced after pen drives of the same were left in several public places in Karnataka. Amid the political storm that followed, Prajwal Revanna was reported to have fled the country and gone to Germany.He was arrested upon his return back to India on May 31. Recently, a trial court in Bengaluru extended a Special Investigation Team's (SIT) custody of Prajwal Revanna till June 18.Meanwhile, both of Prajwal Revanna's parents face allegations that they kidnapped a woman who was assaulted by Prajwal Revanna..HD Revanna was arrested in the case, but was later released on bail. A plea filed by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) handling the investigation to cancel the bail granted to HD Revanna is presently pending before the High Court. A petition filed by HD Revanna to quash the case against him is also pending before the High Court. Meanwhile, Bhavani Revanna moved a petition seeking anticipatory bail before the High Court which was allowed today. Earlier she had been granted interim anticipatory bail on June 7, which was extended on June 14 till a final verdict, which was pronounced today. .Senior counsel CV Nagesh and Sandesh Chouta along with advocates Girish Kumar BM represented Bhavani Revanna. Special Public Prosecutors Professor Ravivarma Kumar and BN Jagadeesh represented the State. .[Read Order].[Read live coverage]