The full-fledged trial in the actor rape case will resume on January 21, after a gap of three months.
The Special Court considering the case approved the schedule for examining the witnesses in the coming days. Going by the present schedule, around 120 witnesses will be examined till March 3. The examination of Kavya Madhavan, wife of actor Dileep, the eighth accused, and his friend and filmmaker Nadirsha will be held on January 28 and February 3 respectively. The examination of around 40 witnesses including Ms. Madhavan and Mr. Nadirsha were postponed earlier.
Pending petitions
On Friday, the court may pronounce its order on the plea of the prosecution to alter a charge, which the court had earlier framed against the accused in the case. A batch of petitions, including the plea of the prosecution for cancelling the bail of Dileep for allegedly violating the bail conditions and trying to influence a witness, and another one filed by Dileep against 10 media houses which allegedly reported the in-camera proceedings in the case, are pending before the court. The bail applications of two accused in the case are also pending.
Special Public Prosecutor V. N. Anilkumar sought time to go through the petition for the cancellation of Dileep’s bail, which was filed by his predecessor A. Sureshan.
Incidentally, Dileep moved a petition on Monday to bring Vipinlal, a witness who turned approver in the case, back to custody. Vipinlal had unauthorisedly got out of the jail. Generally, approvers will be kept in custody until the conclusion of the trial. The actor has also questioned his release.
The Special Court has so far examined 80 witnesses in the case including actor Manju Warrier.
