The Kerala High Court on Monday (June 22) admitted the appeal filed by the State seeking enhancement of punishment for the convicts and challenging the acquittal of actor Dileep and others in the 2017 Actress Assault case.

Apart from Dileep who is Accused No. 8, the State has also challenged the acquittal of accused Nos. 7 Charly Thomas, 9 Sanilkumar @ Mesthiri Sanil and 15 Sarath G. Nair who are accused of entering into criminal conspiracy to commit the crime.

The Division Bench of Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan V. and Justice K.V. Jayakumar is also seized of appeals preferred by the convicts, admitted on an earlier date, challenging their conviction and sentences.

When the matter came up today, the Court noted that Advocate V. Ajakumar has been appointed as the Special Public Prosecutor to argue the case on behalf of the State. He had argued the case before the trial court as well.

The Court then called for the trial court records and posted the cases after two weeks to hear the sentence suspension petitions filed by the convicts, including Pulsar Suni.

In December, the Principal District and Sessions Court, Ernakulam, had sentenced six accused, including the prime accused Sunil N.S. @ Pulsar Suni, to 20 years of imprisonment.

It had acquitted prominent Malayalam actor Dileep, who was accused of orchestrating the whole crime. The Sessions Court had held that the prosecution failed to prove conspiracy by Dileep in the case.

Pulsar Suni (A1), Martin Antony (A2), B Manikandan (A3), V.P. Vijeesh (A4), H. Saleem (A5), C. Pradeep (A 6) were convicted of rape, conspiracy, abduction and other offences.

Case Nos: Crl.A 295/ 2026 and connected cases

Case Titles: State of Kerala v. Sunil N.S. @ Pulsar Suni and Ors. and connected cases