Tarun Tejpal accuser was grilled over drinking, views on sex: Goa to court

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state government, told the High Court that during her cross-examination, the complainant was virtually put on trial. “She was being targeted that you are drinking, you are smoking, you don’t believe that sex is a taboo… and she said, yeah, it’s not a taboo, provided it is consensual,” he said.

Citing statements from her testimony, he said when the defence counsel posed a question on whether it is immoral to have consensual sex with different persons, the witness in her response said she did not believe there was anything immoral about consensual sex. “See the truthfulness of this witness… She says that consensual sex is not wrong, provided there is consent… an untruthful witness would say… no, it is bad, it is not good for society. She is forthright,” he said.

He said when the defence counsel put up a question on whether it is immoral to consume alcohol voluntarily or smoke cigarettes voluntarily, the witness replied that there is nothing immoral about it, if someone is an adult and it does not violate their religion. “This is what a true witness, what is called a sterling witness, answers… Whenever put a luring question when she can improve upon her version, she has resisted it. She has remained sterlingly steadfastly the same from day one. She was virtually put on trial, as if she is kind of a woman of easy virtue…,” he said.

The state government had on Thursday told the High Court that the trial court had done everything “which it could not have done and ought not to have done” in the case, and the manner in which it dealt with the sensitive case was “perturbing”.

In its 2021 judgment, the trial court opined that the woman’s “behaviour” was a key factor, saying it undermined her case. “It is extremely revealing that the prosecutrix’s account neither demonstrates any kind of normative behaviour on her own part – that a prosecutrix of sexual assault on consecutive two nights might plausibly show – nor does it show any such behaviour on the part of the accused.”

In the judgment, the trial court had cited the woman’s relationships in the past, her views on consensual sex, drinking, smoking, her “cheerful and happy and far from traumatised or upset” appearance in photographs taken after the alleged assault, her visit to the hotel suite of an actor she was chaperoning “at an unnaturally late hour”, and “flirtatious and sexual conversations” with friends over WhatsApp to come to the conclusion that she “cannot be called a trustworthy or reliable witness”.

“If the prosecutrix had recently again been sexually assaulted by the accused and was terrified of him and not in a proper state of mind, why would she report to the accused and disclose to him her location, when she could have reported to (three women),” the court had noted in the judgment.