POCSO case: Yediyurappa moves high court after CID issues notice
Even as CID issued notice to Yediyurappa to appear before it, the veteran politician has moved the Karnataka high court to quash the case against him
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Karnataka police issued a notice on Wednesday (June 12) to senior BJP leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, asking him to appear before it for an inquiry in a POCSO case registered against him.
The veteran politician, who is currently in Delhi, has filed an application in the Karnataka High Court seeking cancellation of the case. Yediyurappa has appealed to the high court that the case should be quashed as there is no element of crime in the complaint against him.
Police sources said that Yediyurappa has been booked under the POCSO Act and Section 354 A (Sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) based on a complaint by the mother of a 17-year-old girl.
The mother had gone to meet Yediyurappa in February this year, seeking his help in a 2015 assault case on her then-nine-year-old daughter by a relative of her husband.
She alleged that he then sexually assaulted her daughter. A complaint was filed at Sadashivnagar police station in Bengaluru on March 14.
The Karnataka state government handed the case over to the CID.
Brother files writ petition
Meanwhile, the brother of the minor victim approached the Karnataka high court appealing for an intervention to speed up the investigation.
The brother has filed the writ petition in court after the death of his 54-year-old mother at a private hospital last month due to lung cancer.
In the writ petition, the brother has said no action has been taken 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.
According to the petition, Yediyurappa has not been arrested or summoned for questioning after issuing a notice under 41(A). The CCTV footage at former CM BSY's house has also not been seized.
Yediyurappa denies charge
The 81-year-old Yediyurappa has denied the charge and said he would fight the case legally. He had commented that it was a 'hobby' of the girl's mother to complain to the police.
"I have not committed any illegal act. It is the woman's hobby to complain. However, I visited the station and explained the incident," said Yediyurappa in his petition. He added that instead of recording his statement, the police had collected his voice sample.
The CID, which is investigating the case, has obtained voice samples of the former chief minister to compare with the voices in a video recording done by the victim’s mother on the day of the alleged incident.
The girl's mother, who battled lung cancer, 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. That is when she had approached Yediyurappa in February this year.
(This article was originally published in The Federal Karnataka)