Actress assault case: Kerala HC dismisses survivor's plea in memory card case

Kochi, Oct 14 (IANS) A popular Kerala actress, who survived a sexual assault in 2017, on Monday suffered a setback when the Kerala High Court dismissed her application to set aside or quash the fact-finding inquiry report dated January 8 submitted by the Ernakulam Sessions and District Judge.

Following this the actress has decided to file a fresh petition.

In this case, popular actor Dileep is an accused and was jailed for nearly three months in 2017 and is presently out on bail.

The court on Monday gave this order on a writ petition moved by the survivor that was disposed of with a direction to conduct a fact-finding inquiry into the allegations that the memory card containing videos of the sexual assault had been accessed, copied and transferred unauthorisedly while it was in the custody of the court.

It was Justice C.S. Dias who gave the orders and pointed out that the survivor could initiate appropriate proceedings as per law. "On consideration of the facts and the exposition of law, I am of the definite view that the relief sought in the present application is substantive in nature and arises from a fresh and independent cause of action and is not ancillary in nature and therefore, I hold that this application is not maintainable in law. consequently, the application is dismissed without precluding the right of the applicant to initiate appropriate proceedings in accordance with the law," the order stated.

The actress had alleged that the fact-finding inquiry was conducted in secrecy without even hearing her.

Moreover, she also pointed out that the copy of the inquiry report was denied to her stating that it was confidential and was only given to her pursuant to the court orders.

She further brought to the attention of the court that even the statement of persons examined during the inquiry was given to her on the court orders.

The actor also made another submission that the denial of the inquiry report and witness statements shows maladies on the part of the enquiry authority until the intervention of the court.

Incidentally, she sought an expert study with the scientific investigation required under the supervision of the court since even the inquiry report showed that the memory card was unauthorised accessed and that its hash value was changed.

However, the respondent contended that the applications filed by the survivor were not maintainable since the writ petition was already disposed of.

It was argued that the remedy was to file a fresh writ petition.

The incident occurred in 2017 when she was assaulted in a moving car in Kochi. The prime accused, Pulsar Suni, got bail early this month after seven years from the Supreme Court.