Kerala High Court seeks Dileep's response to State's appeal against his acquittal in actress assault case

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday sought the response of Malayalam cine actor Dileep in an appeal filed by the State challenging his acquittal by trial court in the 2017 actress gang rape case..The State has also sought an enhancement of the sentence awarded by the trial court to others convicted in the case for rape, abduction and allied charges. .A Division Bench of Justice AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Jobin Sebastian today issued notice to all the accused in the case including Dileep and sought their responses..The matter involves the kidnapping and rape of a prominent Malayalam actress in 2017. The survivor actress was on her way to a film shoot location in February 2017 when she was abducted and sexually assaulted by a group of men in a moving vehicle.The men also recorded videos of the assault. The very next day, the driver of the vehicle, Martin Antony, was arrested and within a week, Sunil NS aka Pulsar Suni, a history sheeter, was arrested. Suni was named as the first accused. By the end of the month, four others were arrested and arrayed as accused.In July 2017, Dileep was arrested for allegedly conspiring and orchestrating the rape to exact revenge as the survivor actress had informed his now ex-wife about an extramarital affair. He was later released on bail. In December 2025, Ernakulam Principal District and Sessions Court judge Honey M Varghese acquitted Dileep while convicting six otherse - Pulsar Suni, Martin Antony, Manikandan B, Vijeesh VP, Vadival Salim and Pradeep, for the crime. All six were also found guilty of conspiring to commit the offences under Section 66E (capturing, publishing or transmitting the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent) and 67A (publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act for video recording the sexual assault. However, only Suni was found guilty directly under these two provisions.The sessions court sentenced the six convicts to 20 years rigorous imprisonment which is the minimum prescribed punishment under Section 376D (gang rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)..Dileep's acquittal and the awarding of the minimum sentence to other accused drew severe criticism.The State government then filed the present appeal seeking conviction of Dileep as well as three others who were acquitted by the trial court, Charlie Thomas, Sanilkumar aka Mesthiri Sanil and Sarath G Nair.The State has also sought the enhancement of the sentence awarded to the convicted persons, who had been found guilty of offences under 120B (criminal conspiracy), 342 (wrongful confinement), 354 (use of force to outrage modesty of woman), 366 (kidnapping), 354B (use of force to disrobe woman), 357 (use of criminal force to wrongfully confine a person) and 376D (gang rape) of Indian Penal Code.Several of the convicts have also moved the High Court challenging their conviction and seeking to suspend their sentence. .Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.