The Karnataka high court on July 4 quashed the proceedings against well-known filmmaker Ranjit Balakrishnan in connection with a 12-year-old sexual harassment case. Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar said that the petition was allowed and that a detailed order would be passed.
The high court had previously granted a stay on investigation in this case, making strong observations regarding the prima facie lack of veracity of the allegations.
The case was filed under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and section 66E of the Information Technology Act by a man who claimed to have been an aspiring actor at the time of the alleged assault. The complainant had alleged that he was called to the Taj Hotel at the Bangalore International Airport in 2012, where he was given instructions to reach a particular room. He had claimed that thereafter, Balakrishnan sexually assaulted him in the hotel room.
While staying the investigation against Balakrishnan in 2024, the high court had questioned the delay of 12 years in registering the complaint. It had also observed that the Taj Hotel, referred to by the complainant, was not even in existence in 2012, it started operations four years later! It went on to describe the complaint as a “classic case of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one, false in all).”
The Kasaba police in Kozhikode had booked the director after receiving a complaint from the youngster in August 2024. After that, the case was transferred to the Karnataka police. The man raised the allegations against Ranjith after the release of the Hema Committee report which underlined the problems faced by women in the Malayalam film industry. Several women had also come out against Ranjith Balakrishnan after the Hema Committee report. Bengali film actress Sreelekha Mitra had filed a complaint against Ranjith, claiming that he had misbehaved with her in Kochi in 2009 under the pretext of discussing a film.