The woman who has accused ET Now acnhor Varun Hiremath of rape has complained to the chief justice of India about the allegedly “inappropriate and demeaning behaviour” of the judge who heard his bail plea.
In a March 11 letter to Justice SA Bobde, the 22-year-old asked for action against additional sessions judge Sanjay Khanagwal, as also Hiremath’s lawyer, Vijay Aggarwal.
The lawyer, she wrote, “repeatedly made false, gravely humiliating and disparaging remarks against me and assassinated my character throughout the course of the hearing”. And "instead of reprimanding Aggarwal and restraining him from doing so”, she alleged, the judge “laughed with him on multiple instances”.
After she learned of the legal protections afforded her, she wrote, she was more “shaken” and “ashamed” that the judge “aggravated her misery by laughing at Agarwal’s filthy arguments aimed at disparaging my character”.
At Hiremath’s anticipatory bail hearing in Delhi’s Patiala House Court on March 10, the judge, while rejecting the plea, had pointed out that “consent cannot be implied from a victim's previous sexual experiences with the accused”.
In her February 23 complaint against Hiremath, the woman alleged that Hiremath had raped her in a Delhi hotel three days earlier. The journalist has been absconding since the complaint was filed, with the police accusing him of “evading the investigation”.
Speaking to Newslaundry about why she felt compelled to complain to the chief justice of India, the complainant said, “After what I went through, it took a lot of courage to go to the police and to stand up in court that day. Then to see that the defence’s entire strategy was to disparage my character and ‘slut shame’ me was very upsetting.”
Newslaundry repeatedly tried contacting Vijay Aggarwal for comment, but without success.
Newslaundry is a reader-supported, ad-free, independent news outlet based out of New Delhi. Support their journalism, here.
