The Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed the petition filed by the Malayalam film Actor Unni Mukundan to stay proceedings against him in a sexual harassment case pending before the Judicial First-Class Magistrate Court in Ernakulam.
A single bench of Justice K Babu passed the dismissal order.
The case is related to an ongoing trial court action against the actor, which was started in 2017 when a woman filed a complaint accusing the actor of sexual harassment. The alleged incident is believed to have occurred in Kochi when the woman visited the actor to discuss a film project.
The Court vacated the previously granted stay on the trial proceedings on 9 February 2023 after the woman-complainant indicated that the Court had been misled into assuming that the matter had been settled.
The complainant’s lawyer argued that the Court granted the interim stay based on the actor’s counsel’s misleading assertion that the matter had been settled between the parties. According to her attorney, the affidavit claiming settlement produced in court, on which the interim stay was granted, was never signed by the complainant herself.
On 7th February, 2021, the court granted a stay on the trial court proceedings based on the counsel for the petitioner’s submission that the matter had been settled between the parties.
“The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the 2nd respondent informed the petitioner that she does not intend to proceed with the complaint,” the Court stated in the stay order.
However, Justice Babu later stated that if the woman’s charges about a fraudulent claim of settlement are shown to be accurate, they are “very serious” and Mukundan will be held accountable.
According to the court, the petitioner’s activities amounted to forgery and submitting false documents before the court, which is a criminal offence. The court had stated previously that this was a fraud on the court and an attempt to mislead it.
