Actress assault case: Kerala HC refuses to change trial judge

Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Friday dismissed the pleas filed by the prosecution and the survivor seeking to change the judge hearing the sensational 2017 actress assault case.

The high court lifted the stay on the trial and directed the trial court to resume the proceedings from Monday.

The prosecution had sought to change the trial judge saying that she remained a mute spectator when the survivor was harassed and intimidated by the counsels of the accused during cross-examination.

Senior Advocate Sreekumar had submitted that the victim was forced to undergo an "ordeal" of cross-examination for about 9-10 days, during which irrelevant and unnecessary questions maligning her character were raised.

The actress, in her submission, said that she was not feeling comfortable in the present court.

Dismissing the pleas, the court said unless the trial court and the prosecutor work in sync, it will result in either the guilty escaping from the clutches of law or the innocent being punished.

Justice V G Arun said he was confident that in the endeavour to reach the truth and render justice, the court, the Special Public Prosecutor and the defence lawyers will work in tandem, as is expected of them.

Addressing the petitioners contention that the Special Judge was being biased, the court referred to the cases in which the Supreme Court defined judicial bias.

"When the question is one of transfer of a criminal case on the ground of judicial bias, mere allegation of apprehension of bias is not enough, the court has to see whether such apprehension is reasonable or not. The moot question here is whether the instances pointed out by the petitioners are sufficient to hold the apprehension of bias to be reasonable," it said.

With the petitions being rejected, the trial at the CBI special court Judge-III Ernakulam will resume on Monday.

In the trial that began early this year, the court has by now examined close to 200 witnesses, even as the apex court had directed that there should be no more delays and that the verdict is positively delivered on or before February 4, 2021.

The actress, who has worked in Tamil and Telugu films, was abducted and allegedly molested inside her car for two hours by the accused, who had forced their way into the vehicle on the night of February 17, 2017 and later escaped in a busy area.

The entire act was filmed by the accused to blackmail the actress.

There are ten accused in the case and initially, police arrested seven people.

Popular Malayalam film actor Dileep was arrested in July 2017 in connection with the case and spent several weeks in jail before securing bail.

Dileep has been named as a conspirator in the case and been charged with "revenge crime".

Since securing bail, he has been allegedly trying to delay the trial in the case, through legal submissions, even before the apex court.