India News | Rights of Accused Also Need Protection, Says Kerala HC in Actress Assault Case

Kochi, Jan 7 (PTI) The Kerala High Court on Friday said there should be sufficient justification for conducting a second cross-examination of the witnesses in the sexual assault case of an actress in which Malayalam actor Dileep is among the accused.

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Justice Kauser Edapagath, while considering the state government's appeals against a trial court's orders, declining its pleas to summon several more witnesses and get certified copies of the call detail records of the accused in the actor sexual assault case of 2017, said the rights of the accused persons also need to be protected.

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The court observed that the plea for another round of cross-examination of the witnesses were filed after months. It also suspected that the move was to create testimonies in favour of the prosecution's case.

"The witnesses should not be re-examined in order to overcome the shortcomings of the prosecution. The rights of the accused persons also need to be protected," the court said.

The prosecution has challenged the dismissal by the trial court of its petition to summon 16 witnesses for further evidence.

"Out of the 16, nine were additional witnesses and seven were those who had already been examined," the plea said.

The trial court, on December 21, had allowed the summoning of the three witnesses and rejected the request for summoning the others.

The prosecution had also contended that the lower court was wrong in holding that there was a delay in filing the application seeking the call records and original customer details.

With regard to the summoning of the witnesses, the prosecution has contended that the lower court order to the extent it rejected the application for recalling some of the witnesses and allowing summoning of only three, was "illegal and improper and would cause prejudice in arriving at a right decision in the case".

The victim -- an actress who worked in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films -- was abducted and allegedly molested inside her car for two hours by some of the accused, who had forced their way into the vehicle on the night of February 17, 2017 and later escaped in a busy area.

The entire act was filmed by some of the accused to blackmail the actress.

There are ten accused in the case and initially, police arrested seven people. Dileep was arrested subsequently and let out on bail later.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)