MeToo in Mollywood: SC to hear Sidhique's plea for anticipatory bail

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on September 30 the plea of Malayalam film actor Sidhique challenging the Kerala high court order denying him anticipatory bail in a rape case.

IMAGE: Actor Sidhique. Photograph: Courtesy @actor.sidhique/Instagram

According to the Supreme Court website, a bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma is scheduled to hear Sidhique's plea, which has been filed through his counsel Ranjeeta Rohatgi.

The high court on September 24 rejected the anticipatory bail plea of Sidhique in a rape case against him, saying that in view of the seriousness of the accusations he was facing, his custodial interrogation was inevitable for proper investigation of the crime.

It said since Sidhique's defence was 'a total denial of the incident', his potency test was yet to be conducted and there being a 'reasonable apprehension' that he may intimidate witnesses and tamper with evidence, 'it was not a fit case to exercise the discretionary powers of the court' to grant him the relief.

The high court, however, made it clear that observations made by it in the order shall not be construed as an expression of the merits of the case.

Sidhique, who was booked for offences under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, has claimed in his plea that the complainant female actor had subjected him to a 'prolonged campaign of harassment and false accusations since 2019'.

In his anticipatory bail plea before the high court, he had claimed that she had repeatedly, for the past five years, made unsubstantiated and false claims of sexual misbehaviour and 'verbal sexual offers' by him in a theatre in 2016.

"But now she has raised totally contradictory allegation of more serious crime of rape at a different place in the same year," he had said in his plea.

He had also felt that there was inordinate delay in lodging a complaint against him.

The victim's lawyer, opposing the anticipatory bail plea, had told the high court that the state police was allegedly not conducting a proper probe and had yielded to the actor's influence by not arresting him or recovering the electronic evidence.

It was also contended on behalf of the victim that Sidhique's custodial interrogation was necessary as he had committed 'a heinous crime'.

The prosecution, too, had opposed the anticipatory bail plea by arguing that the probe was at a 'nascent stage' and there was 'a stockpile of evidence against the petitioner-actor'.

It had further said if Sidhique was granted pre-arrest bail, he would tamper with the evidence and threaten the witnesses in view of 'his influence and clout'.

The prosecution had argued that the actor's 'custodial interrogation was necessary to investigate the crime, particularly his potency test, which had to be invariably conducted'.

The high court had rejected the actor's contentions, including that of delay in lodging a complaint, saying 'victims of sexual abuse and assault may experience psychological, emotional and social barriers that feed the delay in reporting the matter, which necessarily has to be understood in the context of the trauma'.

The court had also noted that even though the Justice Hema Committee submitted its report to the state government in 2019, 'the government maintained a sphinx-like silence for five years'.

'Ultimately, it was only through the intervention of this court that the report saw the light of day,' it had said.

Sidhique had resigned as the general secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) following the allegations against him by the female actor.

Multiple FIRs have been registered against many high-profile Malayalam film personalities following allegations of sexual harassment against various directors and actors in the wake of revelations in the Justice K Hema Committee report.

The committee was constituted by the Kerala government after the 2017 actress assault case and its report revealing instances of harassment and exploitation of women in the Malayalam cinema industry.

Following the allegations of sexual harassment and exploitation cropping up against several actors and directors, the state government on August 25 announced the establishment of a seven-member special investigation team to probe them.