Malayalam actor Siddiqui, who has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, finally has something to cheer up. The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to him in a rape case. A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma said the veteran actor will have to deposit his passport and cooperate with the investigating officer in the probe. The top court also took note of the fact that the complaint in the case was filed in August, eight years after the alleged incident took place in 2016.
On September 30, the court granted Siddique interim protection from arrest in the case. Kerala Police has alleged a lack of cooperation on the part of Siddique in the investigation. In its status report, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Kerala Police has alleged that the veteran actor is hindering the investigation and has destroyed electronic devices besides deleting his social media accounts.
''Considering the fact that the complainant had lodged the complaint almost 8 years after the alleged incident in 2016 and she had also posted the post on Facebook somewhere in 2018 making allegations about 14 people including the appellant with regard to alleged sexual abuse meted out, and as also the fact that she had not gone to the Hema Committee to ventilate her grievance which was set up by the High Court of Kerala ... We are inclined to accept the present appeal subject to conditions. In that view of the matter, in event of the arrest of appellant he shall be released on bail subject to terms of trial court including the surrender of passport to IO,'' Bar and Bench reported quoting the apex court.
On September 24, the Kerala High Court rejected Siddique's anticipatory bail plea in the rape case, saying given the seriousness of the accusations, his custodial interrogation was inevitable for a proper investigation of the crime.
(With PTI inputs)
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