The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Sufficient material on sexual harassment by Brij Bhushan: Court
A DELHI court Friday ordered framing of charges against BJP MP and former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in the case in which six women wrestlers had levelled allegations of sexual harassment against him.
The court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Priyanka Rajpoot said there was sufficient material to frame charges against Bhushan in the offences of outraging the modesty of a woman and sexual harassment (sections 354 and 354A of the IPC) of five women. It said for all allegations levelled against Bhushan by victim number 6, he has been discharged. Her charges dated back to 2012.
The court noted that it has found sufficient material against Bhushan for offences under section 506 (1) (criminal intimidation) in the allegations of two victims — number 1 and 5.
Bhushan has not been charged with the offence of stalking (354D of the IPC).
For Vinod Tomar, former WFI assistant secretary and the second accused in the case, the court
said there was sufficient material to frame charges against him for criminal intimidation in relation to the allegations of one victim. Tomar, however, was discharged of the charge of abetment.
Last month, ACMM Rajpoot had reje ct edbh us han’ s plea seeking further investigation in the case. Earlier, the court had deferred the framing of charges against Bhushan since his advocaterajeevm oh ans ought further investigation in the case, claiming in an application that he was not in Delhi when one of the six wrestlers was allegedly molested.
In June last year, Delhi Police had filed a chargesheet against Bhushan for alleged sexual harassment, assault and stalking of six women wrestlers. In its 1,500page chargesheet, police had mentioned statements of at least 22 witnesses from across four states, including wrestlers, a referee, a coach and a physiotherapist,who corroborated the allegations made by the six women wrestlers against Singh.
The chargesheet was filed against Bhushan and Tomar under IPC sections 354 (assault or criminal force with intent to outrage modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), 354D (stalking), 109 (abetment) and 506 (criminal intimidation). Around 220 WFI staffers, wrestlers, referees and coaches, along with Singh and his associates, were among those examined in the case.
The police had also filed a 550 page report in the Patiala House Courts, requesting cancellation of the POCSO Act case against Singh after a wrestler, who was a minor at the time of the alleged incident, and her father, the complainant, withdrew their allegations.