The Kerala High Court has shut down actor Dileep’s long-standing attempt to shift the investigation into the 2017 actress assault case to the Central Bureau of Investigation. With the trial already in its home stretch at the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court, the bench saw no reason to rewind the clock.
A division bench comprising Justices A Muhamed Mustaque and P Krishna Kumar delivered the order, underscoring that this was not the time to re-litigate where and how the probe should be handled. The courtroom wasn’t for reruns—it was for conclusions.
The case traces back to February 2017, when a leading actress in the Malayalam film industry was abducted and sexually assaulted in a moving car. The conspiracy behind the assault, prosecutors claim, leads back to Dileep, one of the industry’s heavyweights at the time. His alleged motive? Revenge. The actress had reportedly revealed his extramarital affair to his former wife, Manju Warrier—a revelation that allegedly helped break the marriage.
By mid-2017, Dileep was behind bars, booked under serious charges including conspiracy, kidnapping, and gang rape. Though his early bids for bail were denied, he eventually walked out in October 2017.
But he wasn’t done fighting. In 2018, Dileep made his first attempt to get the probe handed over to the CBI, claiming state police bias. That plea didn’t go far—Justice Sunil Thomas turned it down. Not one to let things go, Dileep filed an appeal in 2019, which finally resurfaced years later.
And today, the verdict on that appeal is in: no dice. The High Court made it clear—there will be no CBI handover at this stage of the proceedings.
Still, the Bench wasn’t entirely unsympathetic. It noted that the single judge’s earlier comments—particularly about media influence and the introduction of new witnesses—were unnecessary. Those remarks, the Court said, are now effectively struck from the record.
But Dileep’s core request? Denied. The message was clear: the end of the road is near, and there’s no turning back.
