10 reasons why a Kerala trial court let actor Dileep off the hook in 2017 actress assault case

On Sunday (December 14), the survivor reacted with a statement on Instagram. She said the verdict “did not surprise” her but was a “small ray of light” after what she called a “very long and painful journey.” While Dileep and three others were acquitted, six people were sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.

Here is the reasoning behind the court’s decision:

1.The prosecution argued that Dileep held the survivor responsible for the dissolution of his first marriage with actress Manju Warrier. The survivor had told Warrier about Dileep’s extramarital relationship with his current wife, former actress Kavya Madhavan.

The court, however, held that the prosecution could not prove two reported instances of Dileep expressing his anger and ill will towards the survivor. These included a 2012 European tour and a 2013 rehearsal for an Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) event. The court held that prosecution witnesses were unable to conclusively prove any enmity between Dileep and the survivor.

2. The prosecution argued that Dileep and Pulsar Suni met and conspired to execute the crime.

The court held that the prosecution could merely prove that Suni worked as a driver for actor Mukesh during the filming of ‘Sound Thoma’ (2013), which also starred Dileep. The prosecution could not prove that the two met at the Abad Plaza Hotel, Ernakulam, in 2013 and at the Joys Palace Hotel in Thrissur in 2015 to hatch a conspiracy. The prosecution was unable to prove Dileep’s growing friendship with Pulsar Suni.

3. The prosecution argued that there was a money trail between Dileep and Suni as the two had agreed on a contract price of Rs 1.5 crore to execute the crime.

The judge held that the prosecution could not prove that Dileep paid Suni Rs 10,000 at first, then Rs 1 lakh and Rs 30,000 towards fulfilling this contract. The judge observed that while the transactions existed, the prosecution failed to prove that the cash withdrawals made by Dileep and the cash deposits made by Suni were linked. (should it be Dileep depositing and Suni withdrawing?)

4. The prosecution argued that Pulsar Suni made a confession stating that he and Dileep met, conspired and exchanged money towards sexually assaulting the survivor.

This confession was never produced before the court, the judge noted, even as she held that the allegations in the confession alone could not be held against Dileep. The judge also did not uphold the alleged confession of Dileep made to the police when he was in police custody for three days in 2017. The statements were inadmissible, the judge held.

5.The prosecution argued there were crucial meetings between Dileep and Pulsar Suni during the shooting of the film ‘Georgettan’s Pooram’ in November 2016 — just three months before the alleged sexual assault. While the first meeting was allegedly at Thoppumpady, Ernakulam, the second was at the Kinattingal Tennis Club in Thrissur and the third at Santhigiri College, Thodupuzha.

“It is difficult to believe that popular actor like accused no 8 (Dileep) hatched criminal conspiracy with accused no 1 (Pulsar Suni) during the midst of the shooting without being noticed by anybody,” the judgment said.

6. The prosecution argued that Pulsar Suni wrote a letter to Dileep from the District Jail in Kakkanad. This letter, written with the help of Prosecution Witness 121, Vipinlal, was intended to apprise Dileep of his situation and to demand a portion of the promised “quotation” money. The letter was later smuggled out of prison, and an attempt was made to deliver it to Dileep, the prosecution argued.

The defence said that Vipinlal concocted the plan to squeeze money out of Dileep.

The judge noted that the CCTV visuals from the jail could not be relied upon and did not correspond to the time that the letter was written. On account of other contradictions, the court disregarded Vipinlal’s oral testimony about Dileep committing the crime. Citing a lack of proof, the judge has also disregarded a second letter from Suni to Dileep.

7. The prosecution brought up a phone call which Suni made to Dileep. They claimed that Suni called Dileep from prison through a smuggled phone because he knew Dileep well.

The defence claimed that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Kerala police fabricated this call to frame Dileep.

The judge said the prosecution had failed to prove that the mobile phone was smuggled into the prison for Suni to contact Dileep. And, the prosecution was unable to prove that Suni confessed to attempting contact with Dileep to a police constable when in custody.

8. The prosecution argued that Suni tried to reach Dileep before his arrest by walking into Lakshya, a shop run by Dileep’s wife, Kavya Madhavan.

The judge considered the prosecution’s witnesses unreliable over the claim that Suni visited the shop to contact Dileep, and that they failed to prove he visited the shop at all “The purpose of the visit to Lakshya also appears to be different as claimed by different witnesses,” the judgment read.

9. The prosecution had argued that Dileep created a false alibi of being admitted to a hospital when the crime happened.

The defence argued that there was no need for the master conspirator to be present at the location for the conspiracy to unfold, and hence there was no need for Dileep to have forged his patient records. The judge held that the prosecution had not proved that Dileep influenced a doctor in the said hospital to prove his admission.

10.The prosecution had argued that revelations made by small-time director Balachandrakumar in an interview on Dileep’s role in the conspiracy and his relationship with Suni should be considered by the court, as it led to a second round of investigation into the case in 2022.

Among the revelations was the claim that Balachandrakumar saw Suni at Dileep’s home in 2016 and that, after the commission of the crime, Dileep had watched the visuals of the sexual assault. The judge, however, found that the prosecution failed to prove Suni’s presence at Dileep’s house and that there were several discrepancies in the purported voice clips of Dileep produced by Balachandrakumar before the court.

The court observed, “Why the voice clips produced before the court contained similar or repeated content of conversation under different file names are not explained by the prosecution”. The court sided with the defence’s claim that the voice clips were engineered.