The Kerala High Court on Friday extended till Nov.16 its order deferring the trail of the case relating to the sexual assault on a woman actor in which actor Dileep is one of the accused.
When the petitions filed by the survivor and the State government came up for hearing, the prosecutor informed the Court that the Senior Public Prosecutor handling the case could not appear as he had gone into quarantine. The prosecutor, therefore, sought to extend the order deferring the trial.
The Court had last week deferred the trial till November 6.
In her petition, the survivor alleged that she was aggrieved by the biased and hostile attitude of the Additional Special Sessions Court towards her. She further alleged that that the trial court remained a mute spectator when she was harassed by the counsel for actor Dileep during the examination.
Buttressing the contentions of the survivor, the Government also argued that a fair trial in the case would not be possible before the Additional Special Sessions Judge. The Special Prosecutor appointed to conduct the trial had faced extreme difficulties during the trial due to the hostile and partisan attitude of the sessions court, it said, adding that the survivor was harassed during the trial by the counsel of Dileep and the trial court did not stop the counsel from asking defamatory questions to the victim.
The victim was constantly under pressure and humiliation in the trial court by asking her repeated questions in different ways even after giving proper answers, it said. Besides, the sessions court had violated the in-camera proceedings norms by allowing around 20 lawyers inside the court during the examination of the victim, it added.
The Government also pointed out that the prosecution could not conduct the trial before the court as it was biased which was detrimental to the interest of the judicial system as well as the victim. The Court had forgotten that this was a rarest of rare case as the victim had to watch the visuals of rape committed on her and identify it by her during the examination, it said.
A copy of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory report was handed over to the counsel of the eighth accused (actor Dimple) on a day when the case was not listed for the trial, without notice to the prosecution; the trial court did it when there was a Supreme Court order not to give the report to any third person, the Government argued.