Supreme Court issues notice to Goa government on Tarun Tejpal appeal

Tejpal had earlier urged the top court to exempt him from surrendering. However, the court rejected the request and said that it will take up the appeal for hearing once he surrenders and produces the certificate to this effect.

The Goa government too has approached the Supreme Court, seeking enhancement of the sentence awarded to him.

FIR in 2013, acquittal in 2021

The case dates back to November 2013, when Tejpal allegedly assaulted the journalist on two separate occasions in a Goa hotel while the two were alone during a literary festival. She confided in colleagues the same night and, a week later, emailed a complaint to Tehelka’s managing editor seeking an apology and an internal inquiry.

Tejpal responded with two apology emails before the matter became public and an FIR was registered. He was tried on charges including ‘rape by a person in a position of trust and dominance’, along with assault, sexual harassment, wrongful restraint, and confinement.

In May 2021, he was acquitted of all charges by an additional sessions court in Mapusa. It said the woman’s messages to the accused established that she was “neither traumatised nor terrified” and that this “completely belies” the prosecution’s case.

High court convicts Tejpal

The Goa government appealed to the high court, which on August 6, reversed the trial court’s conclusions and convicted him for aggravated rape and related offences and awarded him the sentence.

While convicting him, the high court said that “the trial court proceeded on a notion that a victim of sexual assault must behave in a stereotypical manner”. It added that the trial court ignored the reality of human coping mechanisms by expecting a survivor to be constantly miserable, meek or visibly broken. “We believe in her plight as a victim who has suffered sexual assault by her superior, whom she has known for many years…,” the judgment pointed out.

The high court noted that the appreciation of evidence by the trial court was “not only unreasonable but perverse”, and criticised it for permitting an “invasive, humiliating cross-examination into the victim’s past sexual history, moral views, and personal WhatsApp messages, directly violating statutory embargoes… that prohibit questioning a victim’s character or past relationships”.

Sentence ‘inadequate’, Goa government moves SC

In its appeal before the Supreme Court, the Goa government called the sentence “manifestly inadequate” and “grossly disproportionate to the nature and gravity of the offences committed”. The state said the high court had imposed only the minimum sentence of 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment for each of the two aggravated rape convictions, with the sentences to run concurrently.

It urged the Supreme Court to enhance this to imprisonment for life, or such sentence as the court may deem fit with the same not running concurrently.

It pointed out that the high court had “inter alia, relied upon the fact that 13 years had elapsed since the commission of the offences and that both the victim and the respondent had moved on with their lives, while imposing the minimum sentence and directing the sentences to run concurrently”. It said “such reasoning is untenable” and “the passage of time cannot operate to the benefit of the offender or become a premium for the delay in the administration of justice, particularly at the cost of the victim”.