2017 Actress Assault Case: Kerala HC reserves order Crime Branch's plea

A Single Bench of Justice Kauser Edappagath considered the plea today.

The prosecution urged the court that, "the probe team had to make every piece of evidence admissible, failing which the accused will challenge it as inadmissible before the trial court. The video clips in the case are highly necessary for proper adjudication of the case to satisfy the Court of the necessity to extend the time frame to complete the further investigation."

In the meantime, the Court declined the request of the survivor actress seeking that the judge might avoid hearing the matter. She noted that the judge had earlier recused from hearing her plea seeking proper investigation and hearing in the case.

Earlier on May 24, the Kerala Communist Party of India (Marxist) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had said that the plea filed by the survivor actress in the 2017 actress assault case was mysterious and allegations raised by her against the state government were baseless.

The survivor actress, on May 23, had approached the Kerala High Court seeking its intervention in the case to ensure justice and alleged that a move is being made to subvert the case.

In her plea, she alleged, "It is an attempt to influence the politicians in the ruling alliance to end the case. Despite the evidence that accused actor Dileep's lawyers were trying to influence witnesses, they were excluded from the investigation by the probe team. It was informed that a move was being made to end the case in a hurry. This raises the question of whether this will lead to denial of justice."

Dileep is the Malyalam actor who have been the eighth accused in the case apart from Sunil Kumar, Martin Antony, Manikantan, VP Vijeesh, Salim, Pradeep, and Charley Thomas.

The case pertains that an actress, who worked in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu films, was allegedly abducted and molested inside her car by a group of men who had forced their way into the vehicle on the night of 17 February 2017. (ANI)