The Karnataka Police Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is investigating cases of sexual assault against former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna has sought the opinion of a panel of doctors at the Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Center in Bengaluru on his physical and psychological functioning. .
Revanna’s police custody remand of six days in the first of three sexual assault cases filed against him ends on Thursday. On Wednesday, he was taken to the AB Vajpayee Medical College Hospital (Bowring Hospital) in central Bengaluru and examined by a panel of six doctors for over four hours.
Police sources said that the examination was not a potency test but an effort to obtain the physical, psychological and sexual profile of the accused which can be used as evidence in the rape trials against Revanna. “The potency test is not required in rape cases. This is a new analysis that can help the investigation,” a source said.
The medical panel included experts from the forensic, surgery, urology, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology and medicine departments, sources familiar with the medical investigation process said.
The opinion sought from a panel of medical experts is the first of its kind in a sexual crime case in Karnataka and required a court order, sources said.
The SIT had obtained an order from a special court under Section 53 A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) for the medical panel. Section 53 A of the CrPc says that “when a person is arrested on a charge of committing an offense of rape or an attempt to commit rape and there are reasonable grounds for believing that an examination of his person will afford evidence as to the commission of such offence, it shall be lawful for a registered medical practitioner employed in a hospital run by the Government or by a local authority….” to conduct a medical test.
According to Section 53 A of the CrPc, medical practitioners “acting at the request of a police officer not below the rank of a sub-inspector” can “make such an examination of the arrested person and to use such force as is reasonably necessary for that purpose”.
Prajwal Revanna co-operated with the court-ordered medical examinations, sources said.
“This examination is different from a normal potency test. The crimes have occurred long ago and there are videos and photos,” a police source said. The medical opinions, especially physical dimensions of external organs and body parts that have been sought, are likely to be corroborated with images of the alleged incidents of sexual assault involving the accused.
Sources said that evidence provided by a panel of experts on aspects of an accused’s physical and psychological functioning in similar sexual crime cases – where there is visual evidence but without the face of the suspect – had been used abroad and is documented in medical literature as being effective for a police investigation.
In a normal potency test, only the forensic department will carry out a physical examination and certify whether the suspect is capable of sexual functioning, but this is an effort to assist the investigation of the case and involves a panel of doctors, medical sources said.
The SIT has asked specific questions regarding the physical and mental aspects of Prajwal Revanna’s sexual functioning from the doctors and a report will be provided, sources said. “If there is any abnormality then that will be crucial evidence,” a source said.
Suspended Janata Dal (Secular) leader Prajwal Revanna, who was the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Hassan, is accused in three cases of sexual assault of women workers employed by his family, and a party worker. He left the country on April 27 shortly after the second phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and after videos of the alleged sexual assaults emerged in public.
While the primary evidence in the three FIRs of rape is the statements given by the three alleged victims of sexual assault, the SIT has built up secondary evidence from circumstantial clues like the videos recorded of the attacks and the location of the attacks.
After being arrested on his return from Europe on May 31, Prajwal Revanna was subjected to a regular physical test for health conditions before being produced in court.