The nun, one of the survivors in the Bishop Franco Mulakkal case, has decided to approach the Kerala High Court seeking to quash the order of the Kottayam Additional District and Sessions Court acquitting Bishop Franco Mulakkal in the case.
According to the reports, the nun, who was allegedly raped by Bishop Franco Mulakkal, and the Kerala state government on Wednesday approached the Kerala High Court to appeal against the local court’s order that acquitted Bishop Franco Mulakkal in the rape case.
In its appeal, the state government said that the evidence given by the survivor, confirmed by the statements of several witnesses and the documentary evidence, proved the nun was subjected to unnatural offence and rape by Bishop Franco Mulakkal.
At the time of the sexual assault on her, the nun was serving as the mother superior of St Francis Mission Home, Kuravilangad, and the accused Bishop Franco wielded power and control over the home.
“The presence of the accused on the days when the rape and sexual assault occurred was proved by the prosecution by documentary evidence,” the state government filed in its appeal.
The Kerala government also stated that without examining the evidence cited by the prosecution, the trial judge had a predetermined mind to acquit the accused. The state government argued in its appeal that every attempt was made to discredit the survivor by wrongly considering the evidence.
“Without appreciating the evidence of the prosecution in the correct perspective, the trial court misconstrued facts and law and gave unwarranted acquittal to the accused, absolving him from the charges including rape,” the petition stated. The prosecution alleged the survivor was raped 13 times from May 5, 2014, to September 23, 2016, in the guest room of St Francis Mission Home.
“The judge ought to have considered that the survivor chose to leave the congregation forever rather than fight with the church or its superior authority or the bishop for assaulting her. The court gave undue importance to the first information statement, not mentioning intricate details of the crime,” the appeal read.
In its petition, the Kerala government said when the virginity of a nun is violated, the social stigma that she suffers will be higher than that of an ordinary person. She will have to abandon her nunship forever; she would be ostracised, it noted.
On January 14, the Kottayam Additional District and Sessions Court had acquitted the rape accused, Bishop Franco, saying that the prosecution failed to produce evidence against the accused.
The 57-year-old controversial priest Franco Mulakkal was accused of raping the nun multiple times during his visit to a convent in this district between 2014 and 2016 when he was the bishop of the Jalandhar diocese of the Roman Catholic church. The nun had registered a complaint in June 2018 and has also claimed that despite her complaints, the church took no action against the bishop.