The state government has challenged the acquittal of actor Dileep and three others in the 2017 actor-rape case in the Kerala High Court. He also sought an increase in the sentence given to six other convicts in the case.
The acquittal of Mr. Dileep and others by the Ernakulam Sessions Court was “illegal and contrary to the evidence on record. The judgment was illegal and unsustainable and liable to be set aside and modified.” The sentence imposed was “grossly disproportionate and inadequate having regard to the nature of the offences, the method of execution and the terror created in society”. The convicts were given only a minimum sentence for gang rape and some other crimes they were convicted of were not given adequate punishment, the state argued.
According to the state government, the trial court committed serious errors of law and fact by failing to conduct a “comprehensive and holistic assessment of the prosecution evidence as a whole” against all the accused who were charged with the same offenses as members of the criminal conspiracy. The judge made extensive and stigmatizing remarks against the investigation and the investigating officer. The findings were “totally uncharitable and contrary to the materials on record,” it argued.
The state argued that the court seriously questioned the credibility of the investigation, which was “unwarranted, perverse and without any trace of material to support such a conclusion”.
The trial court, which correctly found Pulsur Suni and five others guilty of the 11 offenses charged against them, did not discuss Mr. Dileep’s role, even though the evidence presented by the prosecution implicated them equally. The illegality committed by the court led to a “complete failure to appreciate the prosecution evidence against the main conspirator and other conspirators,” it argued.
The judge undertook “unlawful exercises” due to her “preconceived notions and lack of judicious evaluation of the prosecution’s evidence”. The first five accused and Mr Dileep, who “were party to a chain of conspiracies hatched to commit various offences” on the survivor and “were members of the same conspiracy, may be punished for all the acts committed by each of the conspirators”.
In the case of Mr. Dileep, ‘who is the main conspirator’, the Sessions Judge decided to take a different approach and applied a different standard of appreciation of the evidence by illegally dismantling the charge against him.’ Reliable legal evidence against him was “arbitrarily dismissed in order to exonerate him”.
Discussions of the facts relating to the criminal conspiracy between Mr. Dileep and Pulsur Suni were inappropriately handled by their rejection. The court wrongly appreciated the admitted and proven facts that established a primary conspiracy between Mr. Dileep and Pulsur Suni “which resulted in an undeserved acquittal” of Mr. Dileep and resulted in a serious miscarriage of justice.”
Published – 27 Feb 2026 21:19 IST
