B. Raman PillaiKochi: Senior advocate B. Raman Pillai has been roped in to replace eminent lawyer Ramkumar as the counsel of actor Dileep, who is in judicial remand for allegedly masterminding the attack on a prominent actress in Mollywood. Incidentally, the selection of Raman Pillai also has evoked a curious connection the advocate had with actor Dileep: Earlier, Pillai had appeared for Nishal Chandra, the former husband of actress Kavya Madhavan in their eventful divorce case. Dileep later married Kavya after the divorce.
There were reports that Dileep wanted to entrust the case with Raman Pillai from the beginning itself. But, due to some inconveniences, it went to Ramkumar. Now it is said that his close relative contacted Raman Pillai again and sought his service. One of the senior most advocates in Kerala, Raman Pillai is a past master in handling criminal cases. In the infamous Hummer murder case, he appeared for the prime accused Mohammed Nisham, the millionaire Beedi tycoon.
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It is learned that Dileep had considered many eminent lawyers in the country including former advocate general of Kerala M.K. Damodaran, former solicitor general and one of the most expensive lawyers in the country, Harish Salve, and Rebecca John, who appeared for cricketer Srisanth in the IPL match-fixing scam, to fight his case in the court. But, finally, Dileep zeroed in on Raman Pillai, because of his proven track record in the High Court of Kerala.
Earlier, the high court had rejected Dileep's bail plea in the case. Though there is an option to approach the Supreme Court seeking bail, the actor got legal advice against it. The legal experts advised him that it was better not to approach the apex court, citing its tough stand in cases of atrocities against women in recent judgements. Hence, he decided to go to the high court once again for bail.
The prosecution opposed the bail plea of Dileep, citing that the investigation team had not been able to recover the most crucial evidence in the case - the mobile phone allegedly used by Pulsar Suni, the main accused in the case, to record the visuals of the attack on the actress. It had also been argued that Dileep's manager Sunil Raj alias Appunni, who is a key partner of Dileep in the crime, had been absconding.
Later, the court also rejected the anticipatory bail petition filed by Appunni. Following this, he appeared before the investigators early this week, as directed by the court.
The two advocates - Pratheesh Chacko and his junior Raju Joseph - who also stand accused in the case confessed before the investigation team that they had put the mobile phone used to record the attack in fire and destroyed it.
With these developments, the two main arguments raised by the prosecution opposing Dileep's bail plea have become invalid. In these circumstances, the fresh evidence and information collected by the police in the case would be crucial for the prosecution when the court considers the actor's fresh bail plea.
The Angamali Judicial First Class Magistrate (JFCM) and the high court had earlier rejected Dileep's bail requests. In both these instances, the case diary submitted by the investigation team in a sealed cover played a key role. The accused approached the high court following the rejection of the bail plea by the JFCM court, by bypassing the option to move the district sessions court. While rejecting the bail petitions, both the courts had made serious observations against the actor. So, the legal experts is learned to have advised the actor that it would be pointless to approach Supreme Court in the case.
The statements of the lawyers that they had destroyed the phone could not be trusted, the investigators vouch. At the same time, they have no clue on how to locate it.
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