Kochi: The Crime Branch is set to wind up the further investigation into the 2017 actress assault case and the additional charge-sheet is likely to be submitted on May 30, Manorama News has reported.
The probe team has reportedly abandoned the move to question the lawyers of actor Dileep, who is an accused in the case. The probe team had alleged that the lawyers had tried to sabotage the case.
Actress Kavya Madhavan, who is the wife of co-accused actor Dileep, would not be named as accused in the case as investigators have not found any evidence of conspiracy, police sources say. She will continue as a witness.
In her statements, Kavya had denied the allegations that his financial interests were behind the incident.
A voice message of T N Suraj, the brother-in-law of Dileep, had also surfaced, alleging that the personal grudge between the survivor actress and Kavya had led to the crime. Subsequently, the Crime Branch re-investigated the earlier allegations of real estate and financial interests.
The prosecution had also raised the serious allegation that Dileep, the eighth accused in the case, had tried to influence even the trial court, apart from witnesses.
The decision not to have any further probe came amid reports that the Crime Branch was planning to approach the High Court with the plea to grant more time to complete the probe.
The Crime Branch team was hard-pressed for time as it had to examine and analyse the digital evidence seized from the mobile phones of Dileep and his accomplices.
The probe team had before it more than 1,000 videos, and hordes of voluminous voice message clips running into more than 200 hours.
Earlier the Crime Branch had found that four defence lawyers had taken the mobile phones of Dileep to a private forensic lab in Mumbai and destroyed the evidence contained in them. The evidence to prove this fact had already been submitted to the court.
It has also decided not to summon defence lawyers though it wanted an inquiry against Dileep's advocates. The investigators had reportedly collected certain evidence showing that some of the advocates representing the defence side had influenced the witnesses and made them turn hostile in the case. But there was too much political pressure on the government side to avoid any such inquiry against the court officials and the advocates.
