A court in Patna district has ordered an FIR to be registered against 1997-batch IAS officer Sanjeev Hans of Bihar cadre and former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA Gulab Yadav for allegedly gang-raping and blackmailing an Allahabad high court advocate and also threatening to kill her.

The order of the Danapur court came on Saturday on a petition filed by the advocate in November 2021 after her efforts to register an FIR against the two accused at Patna women’s police station failed.

Hans, a Punjab native, is currently the principal secretary of the state energy and public health engineering departments, while Yadav was an RJD MLA from Jhanjharpur seat between 2015 and 2020.

Yadav’s wife Ambika is an independent MLC from Madhubani and the RJD suspended Yadav from the party for six years in March 2022 for fielding her as a rebel candidate and indulging in anti-party activities.

Hearing the petition of the advocate, Danapur court’s additional chief judicial magistrate (ACJM) Naveen Kumar Srivastava directed the Rupaspur police station to register an FIR against Hans and Yadav on the basis of her complaint.

The advocate has said in the petition that she visited a senior advocate staying in Gardanibagh locality of Patna in February 2016 and came in touch with Yadav there. He was an MLA at that time.

“Yadav told me that he will make me a member of the state women’s commission and asked me to come with my CV to his residence. I went to meet him and he tried to rape me there. When I resisted, he raped me at gunpoint. I was going to register an FIR against him, but he applied vermilion on my head and said that we were now husband and wife,” the advocate told reporters.

In her petition, she revealed that Yadav told her in 2017 that he has divorced his wife and called her to meet him in Pune.

She went to Pune on July 8, 2017, and stayed in a hotel where Yadav introduced him to Hans. The advocate alleged in the petition in the court that the duo drugged her during lunch and gang-raped her.

They also made videos of the act and started blackmailing and raping her often. She became pregnant and the two accused allegedly forced her to undergo an abortion.

They also threatened to make the videos viral on social media platforms if she did not keep quiet.

She also said in the petition that Yadav called her to Ashoka, Park Avenue and Le Meridien hotels in Delhi on February 13, February 14 and March 27, 2018, respectively. Hans was also with him and the two raped her on those occasions.

“I became pregnant again and informed Yadav. However, he and Hans started forcing me to undergo an abortion. They also kept threatening to kill me if I did not do so. I refused to obey them and gave birth to a child on October 25, 2018. Yadav refused to accept that he was the father of the child,” the advocate said.

She also requested the court to order a DNA test to ascertain the child’s biological father.

The ACJM court had earlier dismissed the petition in 2022 on the ground that the victim did not come to the court on the dates given for the hearing. However, she moved to Patna high court a few months ago.

It pointed out that the victim had given her statement in the lower court on June 14, 2022, and she did not appear only in a hearing on September 20, 2022, and directed the lower court to hear the petition.

The high court had also asked the police to submit a preliminary enquiry report in the matter to the Danapur ACJM court.

Hans did not respond to calls and messages by The Telegraph.

When contacted by this newspaper, Yadav denied the allegations but accepted that he knew the woman.

“The advocate is a blackmailer. She has blackmailed me by posing nude on mobile phones. I gave Rs 49,000 per month for a few months to her. I have proof of it. She is harming my image. I will file a defamation case against her. She has bought a new SUV, land near the site of Allahabad airport worth crores of rupees, and a costly flat in the city there. The source of her money should be probed.”

“She was not a minor that she could be raped. Have you heard of people being raped at the age of 38–40? I do not think call girls can claim rape. She also used to work in a dance bar. Some people are plotting to harm my social and political image. This is a conspiracy,” Yadav added.