The dreams of Kerala NCP’s senior leader AK Saseendran, who had resigned last March as Minister following a sex talk scandal, about getting back to the Cabinet suffered a severe setback on Friday with the woman who had lodged a complaint against him for allegedly outraging her modesty through lewd phone talk withdrawing the petition she had filed in the High Court seeking permission to settle the case.
The woman, an employee of a TV channel which had aired an audio-clip on March 26 in which Saseendran was heard making lewd and obscene remarks to her, withdrew her plea after her lawyer reportedly felt that the court’s decision might not be favourable to her or Saseendran. He had resigned as Transport Minister within hours of the TV channel airing the audio-clip.
The development is a big setback for Saseendran as well as his party as they were waiting for the court’s decision on the woman’s plea for approaching the CPI(M)-led ruling lDF, in which NCP is a partner, with a request for reinstating him in the Cabinet. A judicial commission which had looked into the matter had already exonerated him effectively.
In fact, Friday’s development became the second setback to hit the NCP within just two days. A Vigilance court had on Thursday ordered a probe against its MlA Thomas Chandy, who had replaced Saseendran in the Cabinet and had resigned recently over land-grab charges, blocking his re-entry into the Cabinet. Saseendran and Chandy are the only two NCP MlAs in Kerala.
The TV channel, which had aired the audio-clip that caused Saseendran’s exit from the Cabinet, had later admitted that he was actually a victim of a honey-trap sting operation mounted by a team of its investigative journalists including the woman. The incident had led to the arrest of several employees of the channel including its CEO.
The woman, however, chose to stick to her stand that Saseendran had indeed outraged her modesty with his lewd remarks on her in the telephonic talk. She lodged a complaint in this regard with a court in Thiruvananthapuram in the form of a confidential statement recorded as per Section 164 of the CrPC.
However, the woman later decided to withdraw her complaint allegedly under high-level political pressure and promises, especially after the judicial commission effectively exonerated him. Allegations had come up to the effect that she was even promised a Government job for withdrawing the complaint.
The woman had said in her petition that she had complained against the former Minister due to some misunderstanding and she wanted the case to be withdrawn as a settlement had been reached outside the court. She had approached the High Court after the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Thiruvananthapuram turned down her request for withdrawing the complaint.
When the arguments began in the High Court on Friday morning, the State Government took a position that the case could be settled as the complainant herself was withdrawing from that but those who had applied for impleading in the case pointed out by quoting previous judgements that a case of outraging the women’s modesty could not be withdrawn in this way.
legal experts said there were indications at the start of the arguments itself that a decision in favour of the woman was unlikely to come from the court and that might be the reason why her lawyer decided to withdraw the petition. Also, he might have wanted to avoid a situation where the court would reject the petition with harsh observations, they said.