In Pocso case against Yediyurappa, victim’s brother moves Karnataka High Court seeking speedy probe
The victim's mother died on May 26, and the brother approached the court, saying the police had not progressed with the investigation even after two months of the registration of the case.
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The brother of the minor victim in the alleged sexual harassment case against former Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa on Tuesday approached the Karnataka High Court for intervention to speed up the investigation.
The brother of the victim approached the high court in the wake of the death of their 56-year-old mother on May 26. The mother filed the case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act against the veteran BJP leader in March this year. She alleged harassment of her daughter when she went to his residence seeking help in a 2015 case of assault on the child.
The victim’s brother filed a writ petition through the senior criminal and human rights lawyer S Balan. The petition has not been registered in the court records yet, but it has received a filing number.
According to the petition, the Karnataka Police authorities have not progressed with the investigation even after two months of the registration of the case.
“Accused was not arrested and not even 41(A) notice was given, hence this petition as there is no efficacious remedy other than approaching this Hon’ble Court for invoking its extraordinary writ jurisdiction,” says the petition.
The plea indicates that the victim’s mother had earlier written to the Chief Justice of Karnataka for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the matter.
The victim’s mother, who battled lung cancer nearly eight years ago, had been running around for support for a case involving an assault on her nine-year-old daughter by a close relative of her husband in 2015.
She met Yediyurappa to rally support for her daughter but later filed a complaint against the former chief minister on March 14, alleging that he had touched her inappropriately.
The woman, along with her daughter, went to court on March 20 and provided a statement before a magistrate about the incident where her daughter was allegedly subjected to harassment when she allegedly visited the former CM on February 2.
A day before recording the victim’s statement, Yediyurappa had obtained an ex parte court order prohibiting defamatory media reporting on the case.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Karnataka Police, which is investigating the case, has obtained voice samples of the former chief minister for comparison with voices on a video recording done by the victim’s mother on the day of the alleged incident.
Sources said Yediyurappa appeared before CID investigators on April 12 to provide the voice samples. The former chief minister has refuted the allegations of sexual harassment and said that he had helped the mother and daughter in the past.
“Around one or one-and-a-half months ago, they came to my house seeking help. After listening to her, I called city police commissioner B Dayananda over the phone seeking to address her problem. Later, they spoke against me, and I suspected there was some health problem with her,” Yediyurappa said in reaction to the FIR in March.
Civil society groups like the Janavadi Mahila Sangathan supported the single mother in her legal fight.
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