Kerala Actor Assault Case: Prosecution Seeks To Stop Trial; Alleges Bias By Judge

The sensational case relating to the abduction and sexual assault of a Malayalam film actor witnessed a dramatic twist on Thursday when the Prosecution sought to stop the trial proceedings, expressing no-confidence with the presiding judge.

Stating that the conduct of the trial court is "highly biased" and "detrimental to the entire judicial system and to the entire prosecution", the Special Public Prosecutor in the case, A Suresan, filed an application under Section 309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking to postpone the ongoing trial proceedings.

The trial is progressing before the court of Special CBI Judge at Ernakulam, Honey M Varghese, to whom the High Court of Kerala had assigned the case last year considering the request of the victim of the crime for a woman judge to handle the matter. Prominent Malayalam film actor Dileep is accused of hatching the criminal conspiracy behind the abduction and the sexual assault of the victim, also an actor, in a moving vehicle in the outskirts of Cochin city in February 2017.

The prosecution has so far examined 55 witnesses in the case, including certain prominent actors of the Malayalam film industry. Some of them have reportedly turned hostile. The victim of the crime has also given her statement.

The Special Prosecutor took exception to certain statements and remarks said to have been made by the judge during the course of witness examination.

"The prosecution honestly believes that the prosecution as well as the victim will not get fair trial and justice from this court", the application said.

The Special Prosecutor said that it was approaching the High Court to transfer the case to another court.

"The prosecution intends to approach the honourable High Court for transfer of the trial of this case from this Honourable Court to any other court. Therefore, it is humbly submitted that the prosecution is not in a position to conduct the trial of the above case before this court on the above grounds and also on several other grounds which are not to be mentioned here to protect the interests of justice", the plea stated.

The prosecutor also added that the victim in this case "represents the Indian society at large, and any kind of damage to the image and trust of the system existing in the minds of the public at large will do considerable harm to the entire judicial system".

In November 2019, while rejecting Dileep's plea for a copy of the memory card allegedly containing the visuals of the sexual crime, the Supreme Court had ordered that the trial in the case should be completed expeditiously, "preferably within six months".

The Kerala Police had arrested Dileep in July 2017 alleging that he was the mastermind of the crime. After 88 days of custody, the High Court granted him bail.

The prosecution recently filed an application seeking cancellation of his bail stating that he was influencing and intimidating the witnesses in the case.

In March 2020, the trial court had passed a gag order prohibiting the media reportage of the proceedings in the in-camera trial in the case. However, the court had allowed the reporting of matters as permitted by the Nipun Saxena judgment of the Supreme Court in 2017.

As far as reporting on in-camera proceedings, the SC observed in Nipun Saxena case :

"This is not to say that there can be no reporting of such cases. The press can report that the case was fixed before court and some witnesses were examined. It can report for what purposes the case was listed but it cannot report what transpired inside the court or what was the statement of the victim or the witnesses. The evidence cannot be disclosed".