Give full Hema Committee report to SIT: HC directs Kerala govt

Thiruvananthapuram: The special bench of Kerala High Court has criticised the state government for being inactive on the disclosures in the Hema Committee report, The News Minute reported.

The special branch is tasked with hearing the cases linked to the report regarding the complaints and challenges being face by women in Kerala film industry.

The Kerala High Court constituted the special branch comprising Justices AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and CS Sudha on September 5.

When the Advocate General (AG) told the court that the government has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to look into the allegations, the court asked what actions were taken on the disclosures.

More important, the court questioned the government’s silence over the report despite it was submitted years ago.

The committee, led by Justice K Hema, was set up after a female actor had been sexually assaulted in a moving car in Kochi in 2017 and the committee submitted its report to the government in 2018.

Expressing ‘surprise’ at the government having not taken any action over the report, the court said some action must have been taken when it received the report or when DGP was given a copy in Feb 2021.

The court pointed out that it cannot be silent as this was a problem affecting the majority in the state.

The special bench sought reasons for not registering cases despite several offences including that of POCSO have been described in the report.

When the AG said that instance were mentioned in the report without giving names of victims or perpetrators, the court made it clear that investigations should have been started and dropped in the event of victims did not want to prosecute.

Subsequently, the bench asked the government to hand the entire report including audio recording to the Special Investigation Team.

The SIT was directed to submit a report regarding the action they can take over the report.