Malayalam actor Dileep has moved the Supreme Court urgently for a stay of the trial in a case of abduction and molestation of a female actor in which he is one of the accused.
Appearing before a Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar on Friday (January 10), senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi made an oral mention that the authenticity of a memory card containing certain visuals allegedly of the attack on the victim was being examined by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL).
Lab examination
The trial court should wait till the laboratory finished its examination and submitted a report, Mr. Rohatgi said. He said his client's defence in the case would otherwise be impaired. This would amount to a transgression of the apex court's judgment protecting Dileep's right to a fair trial.
The Bench agreed to hear the plea next week.
It was the Supreme Court, in a judgment in November, which allowed Dileep to either personally inspect in court the contents of the memory card or seek a second opinion about its genuineness and credibility from an independent agency such as the CFSL. The court had upheld the actor's argument that the card should be considered as a 'document' under the Evidence Act.
The plea in the apex court comes a few days after charges were framed against him and nine other accused for the incident which occurred in 2017.
The trial court had dismissed a plea filed by Dileep to exclude him from the list of accused on the ground that there was prima facie evidence against the actor, who is eighth accused in the case.
