Bengaluru:

Bhavani Revanna, the mother of Karnataka lawmaker Prajwal Revanna – who fled to Germany last month shortly after allegations of sex crimes, has applied for anticipatory bail under the Code of Criminal Procedure in a kidnapping case in which her husband was earlier arrested.

Her husband – Karnataka MLA HD Revanna – was arrested earlier this month for allegedly kidnapping a domestic help on April 29.

The woman allegedly kidnapped by HD Revanna used to work in their home and was allegedly raped by his son, Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna.

The woman’s son filed an FIR against Mr Revanna, 66, based on which he was arrested.

HD Revanna, the son of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, was subsequently sent to the custody of the Special Investigation Team, or SIT, which is probing the allegations of sex crimes against his son, and later remanded in judicial custody.

He was released on bail by a local court on May 14.

Today, Prajwal Revanna released a statement saying he would surrender before the police on Friday. In the statement, he blamed the Opposition for ‘pushing him into isolation’.

The comments and “political drama” by Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, “drove me to depression and I was pushed into isolation”, he said.

“I apologise to my parents… I was in depression. I will come (back to India) and appear before the SIT (a special investigative team set up by the state government) on May 31 (Friday),” he said.

“I will cooperate to the best of my abilities and provide all answers. I have full faith in the legal system (and) I will come out of these false cases against me. I have the blessings of God and my family…”

His first public comment on charges against him came after a warning from his grandfather HD Deve Gowda, who asked him to return home and surrender “or face your family’s anger”.

In a post on X, Deve Gowda said he warned Prajwal Revanna to “return immediately from wherever he is and subject himself to the legal process”. Mr Deve Gowda told his grandson to “not test my patience any further,” the former PM wrote on X.

Prjwal Revanna’s uncle, HD Kumaraswamy, has also appealed to his nephew to “come back”. “I have openly appealed to him… told him, ‘if you have respect for the party and Deve Gowda, come back…’ Cooperate with the probe. If you have not done anything prove it. If you have, then face the punishment,” Revanna was told, Mr Kumaraswamy said.

Prajwal Revanna is the sitting MP from Karnataka’s Hassan, which he has been nominated to defend in the ongoing elections. The JDS is allied with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP.

New Delhi:

The pendency of an anticipatory bail application does not bar a trial court from proceeding with steps for issuing proclamation notice and ordering attachment of properties of an accused who is on the run, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.

While observing that the power to grant anticipatory bail is an “extraordinary power”, the Supreme Court noted though it was held in many cases that bail is a rule, it cannot be said that “anticipatory bail is the rule”.

A bench of Justices C T Ravikumar and Sanjay Kumar said the question of grant of anticipatory bail should be left to the cautious and judicious discretion of the court depending on the facts and circumstances of each case.

“While called upon to exercise the said power, the court concerned has to be very cautious as the grant of interim protection or protection to the accused in serious cases may lead to miscarriage of justice and may hamper the investigation to a great extent as it may sometimes lead to tampering or distraction of the evidence,” the bench said in its verdict.

The top court delivered its judgment on an appeal against an order of the Patna High Court which had dismissed the anticipatory bail application filed by the appellants in connection with an FIR lodged for the alleged offences under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Witch (Daain) Practices Act, 1999.

The bench said, “We shall not be understood to have held that the court shall not pass an interim protection pending consideration of such application as the section is destined to safeguard the freedom of an individual against unwarranted arrest and we say that such orders shall be passed in eminently fit cases.”

It said when warrant of arrest or proclamation is issued, the applicant is not entitled to invoke the extraordinary power.

“Certainly, this will not deprive the power of the court to grant pre-arrest bail in extreme, exceptional cases in the interest of justice. But then, person(s) continuously defying orders and keeping absconding is not entitled to such grant,” the bench said.

“In other words, it is made clear that in the absence of any interim order, pendency of an application for anticipatory bail shall not bar the trial court in issuing/proceeding with steps for proclamation and in taking steps under section 83 CrPC in accordance with law,” it said.

Section 83 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) deals with attachment of property of accused who is on the run.

“We have already held that the power to grant anticipatory bail is an extraordinary power. Though in many cases it was held that bail is said to be a rule, it cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be said that anticipatory bail is the rule,” the bench said.

Referring to the facts of the case, the Supreme Court said they reveal consistent disobedience of the appellants to comply with the orders of the trial court.

While dismissing their appeals, it said the conduct of the appellants does not entitle them to seek the benefit of pre-arrest bail.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)