Kerala High Court rejects plea by Dileep against giving copy of witness statements to assaulted actress

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday refused to set aside an interim order allowing the survivor in the 2017 actress assault case a copy of witness statements recorded during an enquiry into allegations that a memory card with visuals of the assault was accessed without authorisation by some persons [P Gopalakrishnan @ Dileep v. xxxx]..On April 12, a single judge of the High Court had directed a trial court to hand over copies of the witness statements to the survivor-actress. Malayalam cine actor Dileep, who is one of the main accused in the case, challenged this order by filing an appeal before a Division Bench of the High Court. This plea was dismissed today by a division bench of Justices N Nagaresh and PM Manoj..In 2017 the survivor-actress was allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted in a moving vehicle by several persons. This was allegedly carried out at the behest of Malayalam cine actor Dileep.The trial in the case is underway before the Ernakulam District and Sessions Court..The actress had moved the High Court in 2022 alleging that a memory card containing visuals of the attack, which was seized as evidence, was accessed, copied and transmitted without authorisation.In December last year, the High Court directed the Ernakulam District and Sessions Judge to conduct a fact-finding enquiry into these allegations.Once the enquiry was conducted, the survivor had to approach the High Court again to get access to the fact-finding report and the High Court directed the Sessions Court to provide a copy of the said report.The survivor-actress subsequently filed an application alleging that the fact-finding enquiry headed by the sessions judge was not conducted in "a fair, free and complete" manner as directed by the High Court.She, therefore, sought a fresh probe by an Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the supervision of the High Court.However, a single judge of the High Court on April 12 had expressed doubts as to whether this application would be maintainable or whether it would be more appropriate to file a separate petition as a new cause of action seems to have arisen..She simultaneously filed another application seeking a copy of the statements given by the persons who were examined in the enquiry.The application was opposed by Dileep's counsel, who alleged that the survivor actress had leaked the fact-finding report to the media after it was given to her. Allowing her to access the witness statements would severely affect the trial, Dileep's lawyers argued.However, the single-judge had found no reason to deny the request for access to witness statements and issued an interim order directing the sessions judge to hand over a copy of these statements to the actress.This order was challenged by Dileep, whose plea was dismissed today by the Division Bench of the High Court.