Kochi/Kerala: In the 2017 actor-assault case in Kerala, the High Court directed a fact-finding team to investigate the survivor's allegations regarding a memory card.
The said memory card is the one used by assaulters to capture visuals of the survivor being attacked in the 2017 case. In 2022, the survivor had moved a petition in the High Court seeking a laboratory examination of the memory card, expressing concern that the card was accessed without authorisation while in the trial court's possession. She submitted that the contents could have been tampered with or leaked.
The High Court ordered that the District and Sessions judge sha;; conduct a court-monitored investigation into the survivor's allegations. The investigation into the matter must be finished by December 7, and the survivor may approach the court in this regard, reports the Newsminute.
The survivor, through her counsel Advocate Goura Agarwal, submitted before the HC that the memory card was allegedly accessed three times while it was in the trial court's possession. They were the dates of January 9, 2018, while it was in Angamali Judicial First Class Magistrate court, December 13, 2018, while in the custody of the District Principal Sessions court, and July 19, 2021. During it was accessed last, 34 new files were created on the card, the survivor's counsel alleged.
Defender and 8th accused in the 2017 case, Dileep, also a popular actor, had applied for a dismissal of the survivor's plea.
The news of the memory card being accessed without authorisation arose in 2022 when Thiruvananthapuram's State Forensic Science Lab (FS) said that the memory card was accessed twice in 2018. The hash value of the card was changed during its time in the custody of the courts.
When the investigation officer applied for an examination of the card in 2018 after the news of it being accessed without authorisation arrived, the Ernakulam Additional Special Sessions Judge Honey M Varghese dismissed the petition. The court then said that the purpose of the petition seeking access to details of a document that was kept in the safe custody of the courts concerned is unintelligible and can be treated only as "ill-conceived and ill-motivated", The Newsminute reports.
That was when the survivor decided to approach the HC, expressing concern about Judge Honey's agenda.
The incident linked to the actor-assault case happened in February 2017. The survivor, also an actor, was assaulted in a moving car by a group of men, allegedly under the directions of the 8th accused, actor Dileep. The men videographed the attack.