The LDF government has decided to appoint a special prosecutor for its appeal in the High Court against the Additional District and Session Judge ruling in January 2022 that exonerated former Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal in a sexual abuse case. The Bishop was accused of raping a nun 13 times at a convent in Kuravilangad, Kottayam. 

Former law secretary and advocate B G Hareendranath will be the special prosecutor. An official notification will soon be issued. The appointment comes a few days after the survivor appeared in public for the first time and questioned the delay in the appointment. The survivor had also met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan last November.

The survivor had filed the appeal in the High Court on March 28, 2022. The very next day, on March 29, the state government sanctioned the prosecution to appeal Mulakkal's acquittal. Though exonerated by the Court, Mulakkal was asked to resign by the Vatican in 2023. He is now Bishop Emeritus of Jalandhar. 

Additional Sessions Judge Gopakumar G Judge, in his order, lends credence to Mulakkal's defence that the sexual relationship was consensual. "Consensual sexual relationship sometimes takes the shape of sexual violence, when the relationship takes a beating," the order says, suggesting that the nun's complaint was a vindictive move.

This was ironical since in the very same order, the Judge spotlights the power dynamics involved. "As far as this case is concerned there are ample documentary and oral evidence to conclude that the accused (Franco Mulakkal) was exercising real authority over the congregation and the nuns. He is definitely a person in authority," the Additional Sessions Judge says in his order. Then, legal circles had pointed out that in such cases where the accused wields absolute authority, the question of consent did not even arise.

The judgment also imbued great value to a fake claim. The survivor's first cousin, Jaya, had filed a complaint alleging that the victim was having an affair with her husband. But later, Jaya conceded that she was lying, that she did it out of vendetta. It was on the basis of this false charge that Mulakkal had initiated an internal disciplinary action against the survivor. 

Jaya had also retracted her complaint in front of the judge. This was looked upon with suspicion. "It is doubtful whether a lady of the stature of Jaya who is a teacher by profession would malign the reputation of her own husband, who is a lawyer practising at the Supreme Court of India, for a silly verbal brawl with the survivor and her family members," the Judge noted in his order.

While the court tried hard to detect the moral decadence of the survivor in an allegation that was later admitted as false, it summarily dismissed the charges of a second nun against Mulakkal. "The behaviour of the accused (Mulakkal) to (the second nun) is not a relevant issue in this trial," the order said.