Honey Varghese (Judge)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Honey Varghese

• Honey Varghese hails from Kerala.

• Honey belongs to a communist family. She was also very active in the communist movement during her college years.

• Her father, M M Varghese, is the former Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) state committee member and former Thrissur district secretary.

• She began her legal career in Thrissur, where she worked under senior lawyer K B Mohandas and continued practicing in the district court until 2012.

• In 2012, she joined the judiciary and was appointed as a District and Sessions Judge.

• In 2017, she served in the CBI Special Court in Ernakulam, handling criminal cases before being assigned to more high-profile trials.

• In 2019, Honey was transferred to the Additional Special Sessions Court, and the High Court assigned her a 2017 high-profile actress assault case involving actor Dileep. This case placed her under public attention.

• In 2021, Varghese was promoted to the judge of the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court. Despite her promotion, she was allowed to continue presiding over the long ongoing trial of the 2017 actress assault case.

• In 2022, a video of Honey Varghese from a Social Welfare Department event went viral, in which she was saying,

Conviction is not the responsibility of the prosecutor – their responsibility is to society.”

• In December 2025, Honey Varghese came into the limelight after she delivered the final verdict in the 2017 actress assault case. She acquitted Malalayam actor Dileep, stating that the prosecution could not prove the conspiracy charges against him, while she convicted six other accused for their direct involvement in the crime.

• After her verdict, the Kerala government announced that it would file an appeal challenging her decision.

• After the verdict, her 2022 remarks about persecution again resurfaced online.

• During the actor-assault trial, some critics said that Honey Varghese did not share the 2020 forensic report, which showed that the memory card with the assault video had been accessed illegally. While others claimed that the prosecution faced unusual difficulties in presenting their evidence before her.

• Honey Varghese had faced a lot of criticism after the verdict, with some people calling her corrupt and demanding her resignation.

• According to some reports, her husband, Jijo Jose, who is a Circle Inspector in the Excise Department, was once involved in a case involving torture in detention.