Actor Dileep on Tuesday contended before the Kerala High Court that there was absence of any material in the murder conspiracy FIR to indicate commission of any of the offences attributed to the accused and the entire case was based on something allegedly "wished" by him.
He also claimed before the high court that offences in the latest FIR, accusing him and others of conspiring to kill and threaten officials probing the 2017 actress assault case, were non-cognizable and therefore, it could not have been registered without prior permission from a magistrate.
The submissions were made before Justice Ziyad Rahman A A by Dileep's lawyers during hearing of his plea to either quash the FIR or transfer the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The actor claimed that there was no human being who has not thought ill of another person, but that cannot be the cause for alarm or a basis for lodging an FIR.
He contended that on a plain reading of the FIR, none of the offences mentioned in it are made out against the accused.
Moreover, the utterances or threatening remarks attributed to him and the other accused were allegedly made in 2017 and came to the attention of the officials only in December 2021 and that cannot be a cause for alarm, he claimed.
He alleged that he was a thorn in some people's side and that is the reason for the latest FIR.
"The criminal justice system is being twisted in this matter...Ingredients of the offences are not present," he further contended and added that he has not faith in any probe agency which is under the Kerala Police and therefore, the investigation should be handed over to the CBI.
With regard to the credibility of director Balachandra Kumar and his revelations, which are the basis for the latest FIR, the actor's lawyers told the court that Mr Kumar himself has claimed that he was a long standing family friend of one of the officials, whom Dileep allegedly conspired to murder.
The lawyers also claimed that actor Dileep has received information from various sources that since April 2021, Mr Kumar has been in touch with another official, who is also a complainant in the FIR under challenge, and that they allegedly planned the latest case against the actor.
The arguments, on behalf of the actor, commenced in the afternoon and went on for nearly three hours and will continue on Wednesday.
The actor and five others are facing cases under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including Sections 116 (abetment), 118 (concealing design to commit offence), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 34 (criminal act done by several people) and later section 302 was also added to it for allegedly conspiring to murder the officials probing the 2017 actress assault case.
The actress-survivor, who has worked in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films, was kidnapped and allegedly molested in her car for two hours by some persons who had forced their way into the vehicle on the night of February 17, 2017 and later escaped in a busy area. The entire act was filmed by those persons to blackmail the actress.
There are 10 accused in the 2017 case and police have arrested seven. Dileep was arrested subsequently and released on bail.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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