Actor assault case: Prosecution calls Dileep acquittal unsustainable, appeal to be filed soon

The prosecution in the 2017 actor assault case has evaluated the trial court judgement acquitting Malayalam film star Dileep and three others as unsustainable.The report filed by Special Public Prosecutor V Aja Kumar and submitted to the Director General of Prosecution for filing an appeal against the judgment of the Ernakulam District Principal Sessions Court was highly critical of the acquittal of the accused persons, including Dileep, and the sentence awarded to six convicted persons. "The trial court has applied double standards of evaluation of evidence while evaluating the evidence of prosecution as against A1 to A7 and as against A7, A8, A9 and A15, especially in respect to A8 and A15," the report said.A8 is Dileep and A15 is his friend Sarath G Nair.The prosecution, in its report, said that evidence adduced by it was appreciated in a most unfair, non-judicious and partisan manner."Most of the valuable pieces of evidence were either ignored or discarded without any valid reasons," the report said.According to the prosecution, the reasons given by the trial court for rejecting the evidence it produced are flimsy and non-judicious.The prosecution noted that the sentence given to the six convicted persons was only 20 years of imprisonment, whereas the maximum punishment is life imprisonment.It also alleged that the judgment, which runs to 1,709 pages, was very difficult for anybody to read and understand easily."The judgment is unnecessarily lengthy, and the same has become voluminous because of discussion on irrelevant matters, and illegal justifications even to justify the serious lapses on the part of the trial judge as well as counsels of Dileep and Sarath during the course of the trial," the report added.Last month, the trial court had acquitted Dileep and three others, while sentencing the first six accused, including prime accused Pulsar Suni, to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.Lawyers associated with the prosecution said that the state government has already given its nod to file an appeal before the Kerala High Court.The appeal application will be filed before the court soon, an official said.