A writ petition was filed on Monday before the Kerala High Court seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the revelations of sexual harassment made in the K. Hema Committee report.
The petition also sought a directive to the State government to enact a law for the protection of women in cinema based on the recommendations of the Hema committee report.
The petition said that the government was reluctant to register crime based on the revelations in the report.
‘Influential people’
The perpetrators of sexual harassment and sexual assaults were people with high political influence and wealth, creating apprehension that they might be unfairly protected and that an impartial investigation would not be conducted. The petitioner alleged that the government had miserably failed to present the report before the Assembly, casting doubt on the State’s real intentions on the safety of women actors. The reluctance of the government to register crime based on the revelations in the report amounted to miscarriage of justice.
According to the petition, the State government has kept the report under wraps for the past five years under the guise of protecting privacy. It was unacceptable, the petition said. The legal norm was to protect the privacy of the victims and survivors, not that of the accused. The petition said that legal lacuna would be made purposefully, deliberately and cleverly by the police with malicious intention to save the offenders from the clutches of the criminal law of the country, while registering crime and investigation, which might result in acquittal of offenders. The petition alleged that the government had no honesty, sincerity, integrity and commitment to the women who faced atrocity in the cinema industry. It was therefore the need of the hour that the investigation be conducted by the CBI.
The petition pleaded for constitution of a Special Court to conduct trial related to the alleged offences mentioned in the report and those revealed, if any, in the redacted pages of the report.