The 2017 sexual assault on a leading Malayalam film actress took a shocking turn on Tuesday with the victim approaching the Kerala High Court raising allegations of foul play in investigation. In a writ petition moved through Advocate T B Mini, the victim, has challenged the professional integrity and honesty of the trial court judge, whose acts were highly suspicious.
Though the case was being heard by the same judge since the filing of the charge sheet, the truth remains that it has not progressed beyond a particular stage. Things took a turn for the worst when the additional director general of police R Sreejith who was supervising the investigation was moved out all of a sudden after the reconstitution of the ruling CPI(M)’s State Committee and the appointment of P Sasi as the political secretary to the Chief Minister.
The vernacular media had reported that with Sasi making a return to the Chief Minister’s Office the investigation and trial of the case would come to a halt. Malayalam cinema’s popular actor Dileep (also known by his original name Gopalakrishnan) is one of the prime accused in the case.
The charge against Dileep is that he had hired the services of a petty thief (Pulsar Suni) for kidnapping the actress and molesting her sexually as an act of vengeance as the former had suspected her of passing on details of his extra curricular activities to his wife Manju Warrior. Manju and Dileep had annulled their marital ties and the actor had married a much younger Kavya Madhavan.
The police ordered a further investigation into the case following some startling disclosures made by a former associate of Dileep to the investigators. Even the lawyers representing Dileep were under the shadows of doubt with the police announcing its intentions to interrogate them.
The victim raises questions on the action of the judge whom she accuses of playing havoc with the digital records (mobile phone calls, WhatsApp messages, voice clips etc) which would have established the role of the prime accused in the crime.
"The conduct of the presiding officer in obstructing the investigation in this matter clearly shows that she wants to illegally help the culprits. Her conducts in this regard if condoned or tolerated will be a disgrace to the judicial system which assures equal protection under the law," says the petition moved by the victim.
Legal experts in Kerala expressed their shock over the way the chief IO was shunted out and the delay caused in the trial proceedings. “Something is wrong somewhere in this trial. There is no justification for this kind of delay in an open and shut case like this,” said a widely respected legal academician in Kochi.