Published Jan 19, 2024 | 8:12 AM ⚊ Updated Jan 19, 2024 | 8:12 AM
Bishop Franco Mulakkal. (Creative Commons)
A Kerala court has dismissed a plea by an IPS officer challenging the maintainability of a contempt of court complaint against him for his media statements against the verdict acquitting Roman Catholic Bishop Franco Mulakkal of charges of raping a nun in a convent in the state.
The Kottayam District and Sessions court on Thursday, 18 January, held that the complaint seeking contempt of court proceedings against IPS officer S Hari Sankar was maintainable, and listed it for hearing on 3 February.
The court in March last year had issued notice to the officer on the complaint by a person named Majeesh K Mathew from Ettumanoor.
Mathew wanted the sessions court to refer the issue to the Kerala High Court for initiating contempt of court proceedings against Hari Sankar, who was an Assistant Inspector General of Police at the Police Headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram in March last year.
When he was the Superintendent of Police of Kottayam district, Hari Sankar had led the special investigation team in the rape case. He had termed as “very, very unfortunate” and “unnatural” the verdict acquitting Bishop Mulakkal of the charges of raping the nun.
The Additional District and Sessions Court I, Kottayam, acquitted the bishop on January 14, 2022, as the prosecution failed to produce evidence against him.
Mathew, in his complaint, has appealed to the court to refer the contempt proceedings against the serving officer to the Kerala High Court, as his statements to various media, following the verdict, had allegedly lowered the authority of the court.
Mulakkal, 57, had been accused of raping the nun multiple times during his visit to a convent in Kottayam between 2014 and 2016, when he was the Bishop of the Jalandhar diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.
The nun was a member of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation.
In her complaint to the police in June 2018, the nun had alleged that she was subjected to sexual abuse by Mulakkal between 2014 and 2016. A case was registered by the Kottayam police in 2018.
Though the local court in Kottayamacquitted the bishop, the complainant nun has challenged this verdict in the Kerala High Court.
