A petition was filed on Monday in the Kerala High Court by the woman actor, a victim in the sexual assault case in which actor Dileep is one of the accused, seeking to conduct the trial in the case by a Session Court presided by a woman judge.
The petition has challenged the Ernakulam Sessions Court order rejecting her plea to transfer the case to a Sessions Court headed by a woman judge for conducting trial in the case. It was dismissed on the ground that no women additional sessions judges were available in Ernakulam district.
The petitioner pointed out that that the offences committed by the accused were “unparallelled and unique in the criminal annals of the State and even the nation.” It was an incident in which rape and other offences were committed, “not out of uncontrolled lust” but “out of a diabolic criminal conspiracy” in which goons were hired by the actor to sexually assault a hapless woman and get the act recorded on a mobile phone.
The petitioner said the Sessions Court had no jurisdiction or power to take a call on the request for assigning the case with a woman judge. The power could only be exercised either by the State government or by the High Court. In fact, she had also approached the government with a request to have the trial conducted by a woman judge. The petitioner now understood that her request was taken up by the government with the High Court, but the request was yet to be considered.
The petitioner contended that the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code mandated that the victim of an offence of gang rape should not be compelled to depose and otherwise participate in a trial before a male judge. This was to protect her privacy and dignity.
Even if an appropriate court presided over by a woman judge was not available within the Ernakulam district, Section 185 of the Criminal Procedure Code grants sufficient power to the government to transfer any case committed for trial to any sessions court to any other sessions court, the petitioner added.
The petitioner also sought to quash the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court’s order declining her plea to have the case tried by a woman judge.