Actor Assault Case: Prosecution Terms Dileep Acquittal ‘Unsustainable’, Appeal to Be Filed Soon

Kochi: The prosecution in the 2017 actor assault case has evaluated the trial court’s decision to acquit Malayalam actor Dileep and three others as legally unsustainable, and has recommended that an appeal be filed at the earliest.

A detailed evaluation report prepared by Special Public Prosecutor V Aja Kumar and submitted to the Director General of Prosecution sharply criticises the judgment delivered by the Ernakulam District Principal Sessions Court. The report contends that the court adopted inconsistent standards while assessing evidence—scrutinising the prosecution’s case against some accused far more stringently than against others.

“The trial court has applied double standards in evaluating evidence, particularly in the case of accused numbers eight and fifteen,” the report states. Accused number eight is Dileep, while accused number fifteen is his friend, Sarath G Nair.

According to the prosecution, its evidence was assessed in an “unfair, non-judicious and partisan” manner. Several crucial pieces of evidence were either ignored or rejected without valid reasoning. The grounds cited by the trial court for discarding prosecution evidence were described as flimsy and lacking judicial rigour.

The prosecution has also raised objections to the sentence imposed on the six convicted accused. While the maximum punishment prescribed under the law is life imprisonment, the court awarded 20 years of rigorous imprisonment, a decision the report says does not adequately reflect the gravity of the crime.

In addition, the prosecution criticised the length and structure of the judgment, which runs to 1,709 pages. The report notes that the judgment is excessively long, difficult to follow, and weighed down by discussions on irrelevant issues. It further alleges that the volume of the judgment stems in part from attempts to justify serious lapses during the trial, including conduct attributed to the trial judge and the defence counsel for Dileep and Sarath G Nair.

Last month, the trial court acquitted Dileep and three other accused, while convicting the first six, including prime accused Pulsar Suni, and sentencing them to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.

Lawyers associated with the prosecution confirmed that the state government has already granted approval to challenge the acquittal. The appeal is expected to be filed before the Kerala High Court shortly, officials said.