The Kerala High Court on January 17 allowed the prosecution to examine five additional witnesses and re-examine three witnesses in the case relating to sexual assault on a woman actor, in which actor Dileep is an accused.
Justice Kauser Edappagath also directed the State government to see that a new Special Public Prosecutor is appointed or make some other alternative arrangements to conduct the cases and ensure that examination of witnesses and production of documents were done within 10 days.
The court passed the verdict on the appeals filed by the prosecution challenging the orders of the Ernakulam Additional Special Sessions Court rejecting the prosecution’s applications seeking to recall some of the witnesses and summon additional witnesses for examination in the case.
According to the prosecution’s petition, its plea for issuing summons under section 311 of the Criminal Procedure Code(CrPC) to 16 witnesses for taking further evidence was rejected by the Special court. Of the 16 witnesses, 9 witnesses were additional witnesses. In fact, some of the witnesses were required to be recalled to identify the accused persons. The orders passed by the lower court was illegal and the trial court should have permitted the prosecution to re-examination the witnesses and examine the additional witnesses, the prosecution contended.
Ernakulam Additional Special Sessions Judge had earlier directed the Investigation Officer to file a report by January 20 on the further investigation being conducted into the revelations of Balachandrakumar, who claims to be Dileep's friend, in the case.
Balachandrakumar had claimed that he had seen ‘Pulsar’ Suni, prime accused in the case, at the residence of Dileep. He said it was Dileep’s brother Anoop who introduced Suni to him in December 2016 at the actor’s residence at Aluva. He had also alleged that Dileep had got a copy of the video on the sexual assault of the woman actor even before it was produced before the court .