The Karnataka High Court today has dismissed a petition filed by the petitioner K Lenin who sought transfer of the rape case against Nithyananda Swami from Ramanagara District Court to a court in Bangalore.

The bench headed by Justice BA Patil held that the petition was ‘devoid of merits’ and rejected the plea. It has further directed the trial court to expedite the trial, which has been pending for a decade. Citing the judgment of Nahar Singh Yadav Another Vs. Union of India Others, the Court said “Order of transfer is not to be passed as a matter of routine or merely because an interested party has expressed some apprehension about the proper conduct of the trial. There must be some substantial material to support the said contention and the said apprehension must be a reasonable apprehension.”

Further, the court took a strong note on the complainant and stated that “Though many times the complainant has sought for adjournment on the ground of health problem, the records indicate that even though he was present before the Court, he has not stepped into the witness box to give evidence. The said attitude of the complainant is deprecated. If he really wants to do justice, then under such circumstances, he must come forward and give the evidence as contemplated under the law. Without doing the same, he has acted on his own way that he is leading the Court instead of Court controlling the case and proceeding with the matter.”

Subsequently, considering the fact that the trial has been pending for the past 10 years, the High Court has directed the Ramanagara District Court to speed up the trial process by adhering to the principles laid down by the Supreme Court.