Actor’s plea for open court trial in the rape case not maintainable, rules District Court

A trial court here dismissed the plea of the woman actor in the actor rape case to hold the remaining portions of the trial as open court proceedings after finding that the petition was not a maintainable one.

Honey M. Varghese, the District and Sessions Judge, Ernakulam, dismissed the petition the other day.

The court pointed out that the District and Sessions Court had earlier allowed her plea to hold the trial as in-camera proceedings to protect her privacy and hence the same court cannot review its earlier order. Though the trial court, which allowed the in-camera proceedings, had dismissed her plea to have a woman judge to consider the case, the actor had secured a favourable order from the Kerala High Court and Ms. Varghese was assigned the job.

Dismissing her plea for an open court hearing, the trial court pointed out that she had secured orders from various courts to hold the trial as in-camera proceedings to guard her privacy. The Supreme Court too had ordered that the privacy of the survivor shall be protected during the trial. The court cannot sidestep the legal mandate of holding the trial in sexual offences involving women or sexual assault cases booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act as in-camera proceedings, the court pointed out.

Section 366 (2) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhitha, 2023 and Section 327 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 stipulates that the trial of sexual offences shall be conducted in-camera. Neither the survivor nor any parties to the case can demand that the proceedings in such cases shall be conducted in open courts, the court noted.

It’s the duty and legal mandate of the court to hold such proceedings as in-camera ones and to protect the privacy of the survivors in the case. The court cannot waive off or relax its statutory mandate, the court pointed out.

Incidentally, the actor had moved the court early this month seeking open court proceedings by stating that her identity and the fact that she was a victim in the sexual assault case was “well known to every member of this society.