KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday granted permission to actor Dileep, who is out on bail in the actor assault case, to travel to Dubai for opening a branch of his restaurant chain ‘Dhe Puttu.’
The court also directed the Angamaly Judicial First Class Magistrate Court to release the passport for him for six days. While granting bail to Dileep, the Kerala High Court had directed to surrender his passport before the magistrate court.
Dileep stated he has been strictly complying with all the conditions imposed by the High Court. He is one of the partners of the restaurant ‘Dhe Puttu’ having outlets in Ernakulam and Kozhikode.
The court also directed Dileep to file a statement before the investigating officer regarding the details of his stay, contact number and Visa details.
Meanwhile, the prosecution submitted some of the crucial witnesses in the case had been influenced to retract their earlier statements. Sagar Vincent had given a statement before the investigation officer he had seen Vijeesh, the fourth accused, visiting the office of the online textile marketing firm ‘Laksyah’, run by Dileep’s wife Kavya Madhavan, retracted his statement. He even gave statements under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code before the JFCM, Kalamassery.
However, on examining the certified copy of the statements, it was seen he had retracted his earlier statement. It was reliably learnt the witnesses had been influenced by one Suneer, driver of Kavya Madhavan, and an advocate from Ernakulam. Another witness, Sarath Babu, who had also confirmed the visit of Vijeesh to the office of the textile firm, was influenced by Suneer and the advocate, the prosecution submitted.
Charley Thomas, the seventh accused in the case, had volunteered to be an approver in the case. However, he did not turn up at the Ernakulam Chief Judicial Magistrate Court for tendering pardon, despite issuing summons to him.
Prosecution mulls approaching magistrate
The prosecution said they were seriously thinking about approaching the magistrate seeking to cancel Dileep’s bail. However, a final decision in this regard is yet to be taken, it said. Meanwhile, the state police chief Loknath Behera, Director General of Prosecution C Sreedharan Nair and Senior Government Pleader Suman Chakravarthy held a closed-door meeting at DGP’s office to discuss the matter.