The Kerala High Court on Thursday issued a notice to the State on a plea seeking cancellation of anticipatory bail of a lawyer who has been accused of rape on the false promise of marriage by a woman advocate practicing at Ernakulam..The plea moved by the complainant was listed before Justice G Girish on Thursday. The accused lawyer was granted pre-arrest bail by a trial court on May 17 on the ground that it was a case of consensual relationship..The complainant, a 39-year-old divorcee, has alleged that since July 2023, she was subjected to repeated “sexual assaults" under the pretext of marriage and was coerced into abortion in February 2024. She later discovered that the man was in a relationship with another woman. She has also accused the lawyer of stealing her belongings, including gold, documents and property deeds of a rented residence. The accused and the complainant had lived together for some time..Seeking cancellation of the relief granted to him by the trial court, she argued that the trial court failed to consider that he never intended to marry her and initiated the marriage registration process only to manipulate her into terminating the pregnancy.The accused before the trial court had argued that non-disclosure of the complainant’s age and marital status had prevented him from fulfilling the promise of marriage. However, the complainant has stated that he was fully aware of her age and marital status..She also argued that the trial court failed to take into account that her valuables were stolen by the accused.“The Hon’ble court observed that the petitioner and 2nd respondent resided together in the house where the house break and theft occurred. The view taken by the Hon’ble trial court is prejudicial and the Hon’ble trial court failed to observe that the 2nd respondent left the company of the petitioner and abandoned her on 26.03.2025 and later came back and committed house break and theft on 09.04.2025,” the plea stated..Advocate Raghul Sudheesh along with advocates Lakshmi J, Ambily T Venu, Unnikrishnan S Thandayaan and Umadevi M appeared for the complainant.
