The Kerala High Court on Tuesday sought the response of Malayalam cine actor Dileep to an appeal filed by the state challenging a sessions court order acquitting him (actor Dileep )of all charges in the 2017 actress assault case and seeking enhancement of the punishment for the convicted persons. The court also condoned the 17-day delay in the appeal filed by the State.
A Division Bench of Justice AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Jobin Sebastian on Tuesday issued notice to all the accused in the case including Dileep and sought their responses.
The matter involves the kidnapping and rape of a prominent Malayalam actress. The survivor was on her way to a film shoot location in February 2017 when she was abducted and sexually assaulted by a group of men in a moving vehicle.
Ernakulam Principal District and Sessions Court judge Honey M Varghese in December 2025 acquitted Dileep while convicting six others — Pulsar Suni, Martin Antony, Manikandan B, Vijeesh VP, Vadival Salim and Pradeep, for the crime.
All six were also found guilty of conspiring to commit the offences under Section 66E (capturing, publishing or transmitting the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent) and 67A (publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act for video recording the sexual assault. However, only Suni was found guilty directly under these two provisions.
The sessions court sentenced the six convicts to 20 years rigorous imprisonment which is the minimum prescribed punishment under Section 376D (gang rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The State government then filed the present appeal seeking conviction of Dileep as well as three others who were acquitted by the trial court, Charlie Thomas, Sanilkumar aka Mesthiri Sanil and Sarath G Nair. In its appeal before the High Court the State has also sought enhancement of sentence for accused no. 1-6, contending that the punishment awarded is inadequate given the gravity and societal impact of the crime. For context the trial court had convicted accused Nos. 1 to 6– Pulsar Suni (A1), Martin Antony (A2), B Manikandan (A3), V.P. Vijeesh (A4), H. Saleem (A5), C. Pradeep (A 6)–for offences section 120 B(criminal conspiracy), 340(wrongful confinement), 354(Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 366(kidnapping), 354B(Assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe) and 376D(gang rape) IPC.
Dileep’s acquittal and the awarding of the minimum sentence to other accused drew severe criticism.