Brij Bhushan Singh was given two weeks by the Delhi High Court to submit a note on contentions asking for the criminal proceedings against him related to the allegations of his sexual assault of wrestlers to be quashed.
Brij Bhushan Singh, the former president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and BJP MP, filed a request with the Delhi High Court on Thursday to have all criminal charges against him related to his alleged sexual assault of wrestlers quashed. Since he was the president of WFI at the time, he contended that there is “a hidden agenda” behind the complaints made against him.
Singh’s attorney, Rajiv Mohan, contended that there is “no commonality of the cause,” citing Singh’s position as WFI president and the shared goal of removing him from office.
“Every complainant has her own complaints… Before January 18, 2023, none of these six individuals came forward to file a complaint or voice any grievance against Singh,” Mohan stated.
Noting that the complainant had been beaten in Mongolia in one of the complaints that resulted in the filing of a formal complaint against Singh in 2023, it was further contended that “the place (of offence) was Mongolia, not India..law is well settled as per (CRPC section) 188, courts in India doesn’t have jurisdiction to try the case.”
But Mohan was asked by Judge Neena Bansal Krishna if the crime stopped there in Mongolia. In response to a question, Singh’s attorney stated that although the same complainant had reported a second incident of sexual assault at the WFI office in October 2017, there was no connection between the two incidents. “The two instances must be connected in some way…When the second incident occurred, I wasn’t in Delhi. This is the record.”
However, Justice Neena Bansal Krishna’s court made the following oral observation: “If you’re going to challenge everything, there can’t be an omnibus order (on quashing and setting aside all proceedings)…Every one of your allegations was taken into account when the charges were filed.Maybe we could look into your case if these grounds were not agitated.This is a roundabout method.
If Mohan keeps making the same arguments, Justice Krishna continued, “it’ll take us 5 hours to look into this (each instance)”. The matter was kept for consideration on September 26 after the court asked Singh to submit a note containing each complaint, instance of offense, and grounds of challenge against each. Singh has been told to present the note to the judge in two weeks.
The trial court has framed the charges with respect to the complaints made by five wrestlers, not six, as the latter would be barred by the limitation statute, senior advocate Rebecca John countered Mohan. John argued that this merely demonstrated that the trial court had carefully considered every angle when determining how to frame the charges.
The trial began in July, over a year after a chargesheet was filed against Singh in June 2023. The trial court had framed charges against him only in May this year, under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 354 (assault or criminal force with intent to outrage modesty of a woman) and 354A (sexual harassment), after Singh had pleaded not guilty.
The accusations of sexual harassment, assault, and stalking of six female wrestlers were detailed in a 1,500-page chargesheet against Singh. The statement of at least 22 witnesses, including wrestlers, coaches, referees, and physiotherapists, from four different states, was included in the chargesheet.
