Kochi: In a big relief to Malayalam film director Ranjith Balakrishnan, the Karnataka High Court on Friday quashed the sexual assault case registered over a man's complaint. A single judge bench of Justice SR Krishna Kumar cancelled the case after observing that the complainant's claims were false and questioned the delay in filing a complaint over an incident that took place in 2012.

The case was registered for offences under Section 377 (unnatural sex) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, 2000. In the complaint, the man from Kozhikode alleged that the director sexually abused him after inviting him to a hotel room in Bengaluru in 2012.

ADVERTISEMENT

Earlier, the court had stayed the investigation after noting that the Taj Hotel, where the alleged crime occurred, was not in existence in 2012, the date of the alleged offence, as it began operations only in 2016.

"The complaint on the face of it, is false. I don't even say prima facie, as the Taj Hotel near Bengaluru International Airport starts its operation only in the year 2016, this is in public domain, it is four years after the incident. Therefore, the vivid narration at Taj hotel is absolutely false. This is thus a canard," the court said.

ADVERTISEMENT

"The complaint is registered in the year 2024 and the alleged incident is said to have happened in the year 2012. Therefore, it has taken 12 years for the complainant to register the complaint. The delay of 12 years is also left completely unexplained. Therefore, on all these factors it becomes a classic case of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus," pronounced the judge.

Kasaba police in Kozhikode booked the director after receiving a complaint from the youth in August 2024. Later, the case was transferred to the Karnataka police. 

ADVERTISEMENT

The youth raised the sexual assault allegations against the director following the release of the Hema Committee report that revealed problems faced by women in the film industry. Many women, especially junior artists, dared to open up about the sexual assault and misconduct in the film industry. 

Ranjith is one of the many leading figures in the Malayalam film industry against whom complaints of misconduct/sexual harassment have been levelled by their female colleagues. Bengali actor Sreelekha Mitra had filed a complaint against Ranjith, claiming he misbehaved with her in the pretext of a movie discussion in Kochi in 2009.
(With Live Law inputs)

The comments posted here/below/in the given space are not on behalf of Onmanorama. The person posting the comment will be in sole ownership of its responsibility. According to the central government's IT rules, obscene or offensive statement made against a person, religion, community or nation is a punishable offense, and legal action would be taken against people who indulge in such activities.