Author Civic Chandran, who faces two cases of sexual assault, surrendered before the Kerala Police on Tuesday morning, The New Indian Express reported.
He arrived at the office of the deputy superintendent of police at Vadakara with lawyers and is due to be produced in court, according to the Hindustan Times.
The development came after Chandran’s anticipatory bail was cancelled by the Kerala High Court on October 20.
Justice A Badharudeen had passed the order while hearing a petition by the Kerala government and the complainant challenging the anticipatory bail granted to Chandran by the Kozhikode Sessions Court. The petitioners had argued that the order was against the spirit of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
On October 13, a single-judge bench of the Kerala High Court had expunged remarks made by sessions court judge S Krishna Kumar while granting anticipatory bail to Chandran. Kumar had said that the law about outraging a woman’s modesty did not apply if she was wore a “sexually provocative dress”.
The same judge, while granting Chandran anticipatory bail in a separate case, had said it was “highly unbelievable that he will touch the body of the victim fully knowing that she is a member of Scheduled Caste”.
Although the High Court had expunged the sessions judge’s remarks, it had upheld the order granting the anticipatory bail.
The first case against Chandran pertains to allegations that he harassed a writer during a book exhibition in 2020. In the second case, a Dalit woman has accused him of having sexually harassed her in April.
The author has been booked under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with molestation, as well as provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
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