Director Ranjith gets a sigh of relief after Karnataka High Court withdraws sexual assault case against him.
The Karnataka High Court on Friday, July 4 quashed the sexual assault case against Malayalam filmmaker Ranjith Balakrishnan. Yes, you read that right! The recent update on the case has brought him significant relief. While, the copy of the ruling is still awaited and as per reports, the senior advocate Prabhuling Navadgi represented the filmmaker in the court and presented evidence which led the court to announce the rule in his favour.
A sigh of relief for filmmaker Ranjith Balakrishnan
Justice SR Krishna Kumar who allowed the petition filed by Ranjith to quash the case and the advocated highlighted that the Taj Hotel, where the alleged crime supposedly occurred, was opened four years after the date of the alleged incident. Earlier, the same aspect of the case had led Justice M Nagaprasanna to put a stay on the criminal proceedings against the filmmaker.
As per reports, the alleged incident was reported 12 years after it supposedly occurred and no justification was provided for the delay in filing the FIR. An aspiring actor claimed that Ranjith invited him to the fourth floor of the Taj Hotel, where the incident allegedly took place as per reports. The complainant gave a detailed description of the alleged event and later Ranjith was booked under Section 377 of the IPC (unnatural offences) and Section 66E of the IT Act, 2000 (violation of privacy). He even moved the High Court to quash the FIR and the same was announced today.
Allegations against the filmmaker
As per details from the FIR, the alleged incident dates back to December 2012 when the complainant met Balakrishnan during a film shoot in Kozhikode. He was visiting the set of Bavuttiyude Namathil, a film written and produced by Balakrishnan to meet Mammootty. After the meeting, Balakrishnan reportedly obtained the complainant’s contact number and invited him to a hotel near Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru. The director allegedly offered the complainant alcohol and assaulted him reportedly.
“The incident allegedly took place in 2012, but the complainant came forward only now, encouraged by the wave of sexual harassment allegations being made by many artists in the Malayalam film industry,” said a police source. The complainant said that the director had sent his naked photos to an actress who allegedly liked his photos.
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