Actress Assault Case : Kerala High Court Dismisses Survivor's Application To Quash Fact-Finding Inquiry On Memory Card
The Kerala High Court dismissed the application filed by the survivor in the 2017 actress sexual assault, involving Malayalam actor Dileep. The survivor filed the application to set aside or quash the fact-finding inquiry report dated January 08, 2024, submitted by the Ernakulam Sessions and District Judge. The application also sought to appoint a Special Investigation Team to investigate...
The Kerala High Court dismissed the application filed by the survivor in the 2017 actress sexual assault, involving Malayalam actor Dileep. The survivor filed the application to set aside or quash the fact-finding inquiry report dated January 08, 2024, submitted by the Ernakulam Sessions and District Judge. The application also sought to appoint a Special Investigation Team to investigate the alleged unauthorised access to the contents of the memory card which contained the visuals of the sexual assault.
The present application was filed in a writ petition moved by the survivor that was disposed of with direction to conduct a fact-finding inquiry into the allegations that the memory card containing videos of the sexual assault had been accessed, copied and transferred unauthorizedly while it was in the custody of the Court.
Justice C S Dias dismissed the application moved by the survivor as not maintainable and held that the survivor could initiate appropriate proceedings as per law.
"On consideration of the facts and the exposition of law, I am of the definite view that the relief sought in the present application is substantive in nature and arise from a fresh and independent cause of action and are not ancillary in nature and therefore, I hold that this application is not maintainable in law. consequently, the application is dismissed without precluding the right of the applicant to initiate appropriate proceedings in accordance with the law."
The survivor alleged that the fact-finding inquiry was conducted in secrecy without even hearing her. She further alleged that copy of inquiry report was denied to her stating that it was confidential and it was only given to her pursuant to the orders of the Court. She stated that even the statement of persons examined during the inquiry was given to her on the orders of the Court.
The survivor alleges that the denial of the inquiry report and witness statements show malafides on the part of the enquiry authority until the intervention of the Court.
The survivor alleged that inquiry authority has not conducted inquiry as per the orders of the Court. It was also stated that the inquiry authority has not carried scientific investigation even the inquiry report showed unauthorized access to the memory card. It was also argued that an expert study with scientific investigation is required under the supervision of the Court since even the inquiry report shows that the memory card was unauthorizedly accessed and that its hash value was changed.
It was further argued that the inquiry authority has conducted the inquiry in a perfunctory manner to safeguard the culprits and has arrived at the findings in the inquiry report solely based on the confessions of the culprits.
The respondent contended that the applications filed by the survivor were not maintainable since the writ petition was already disposed of. It was argued that the remedy was to file a fresh writ petition. Relying upon the Apex Court decision in Nazma v. Javed alias Anjum (2022), to state that the reliefs sought in the application of the survivor were independent, distinct and were a new cause of action.
The Court relying upon Nazma (supra) held that the Apex Court has deprecated the practice of the High Courts entertaining miscellaneous applications in disposed writ petitions.
As such, the Court held that the reliefs sought by the survivor are substantive and not ancillary in nature to file applications in a writ petition that was already disposed of. The Court thus dismissed the application and gave liberty to the survivor to initiate appropriate proceedings as per law.
Case Title: XXX v. State of Kerala
Case Number: W.P. (Crl.) 445/ 2022