The Kerala High Court on Friday, June 3, granted the Kerala Crime Branch an extension to complete its additional probe into the 2017 actor assault case, in which actor Dileep is the eighth accused. Justice Kauser Edappagath of the Kerala High Court allowed the police’s petition seeking an extension in the deadline to complete further probe into the case. The High Court has granted the police time till July 15 to complete the probe.
Further investigation in the case was launched by the police following fresh revelations by director Balachandra Kumar, who used to be Dileep’s friend. Balachandra Kumar had claimed that the accused actor was in possession of the visuals of the sexual assault before the lawyers and the actor watched it in the magistrate’s court in December 2017. During this additional probe, a new forensic report revealed that the memory card which contained the visuals of the sexual assault was accessed twice when it was in the custody of the court.
Following this, as the further investigation was to be concluded by May 30, the Kerala police moved the court seeking more time to study devices that are in their custody, as they believe more incriminating evidence can be found. During the hearing, actor Dileep’s counsel had vehemently opposed an extension for the police. Dileep’s advocate Raman Pillai submitted to the court that there is nothing more to be probed in the case and enough time has already been given for the probe team. The prosecution argued that since a multitude of documents, messages and voice messages have to be scrutinised, they need more time.
At the outset of the hearing, the survivor’s counsel advocate TB Mini had requested Justice Edappagath to recuse from hearing this particular petition. She referred to Bhavana’s petition over the investigation into the case and the prosecution’s submission that there was a leak of the memory card containing the visuals of the sexual assault from the Principal Sessions Court in Ernakulam, when Justice Edappagath was then the judge of the court. The judge had recently recused himself from hearing another petition by the survivor actor, about her concerns in the investigation. But the court proceeded to hear the case and reserved the case for orders on June 1.