Tejpal should have surrendered before filing appeal: Solicitor General to Supreme Court

Opposing this, Mehta pointed out the appeal will not stand unless he surrenders. He contended that Order XX Rule 3 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, is mandatory in nature, in view of which, until and unless the appellant surrenders, the appeal cannot be listed before the court.

Citing a two-judge bench judgement of the SC, which held the provision to be mandatory, the SG said that until and unless, suitable orders are passed on the application seeking exemption from surrender, the appeal cannot be listed before the court.

Consequently, the request to list the matter before the Court without considering the application seeking exemption from surrender, cannot be accepted, Mehta argued.

Countering this, Sibal said there was no need to surrender as the HC had given Tejpal a window of four weeks.

“The rule does not apply because this is a case where stay has been granted by the High Court, so there is no question of applying this rule. Suppose the Court says no stay, I will have to go to jail. What’s the pleasure in saying I must surrender and then appeal, when the High Court itself granted a stay and the order stands?” the senior counsel contended.

The court, after hearing both sides, said Sibal “has not addressed” it “on the merits of the application seeking exemption from surrender. With a view to afford him an opportunity to address the Court on the aforesaid interlocutory application, list the same for consideration on 25.08.2026.”

The case dates back to November 2013, when Tejpal allegedly assaulted the survivor on two separate occasions inside the lift of a hotel in Goa while the two were alone during a literary festival.

He was acquitted of all charges by an Additional Sessions court in Mapusa in May 2021. Then, the court had 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.

The Goa government appealed to the High Court, which reversed the trial court’s conclusions and convicted him. The latter said “the trial court proceeded on a notion that a victim of sexual assault must behave in a stereotypical manner”.

The HC further 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”.

Challenging this, Tejpal, said in his appeal before the SC that the HC judgement is “erroneous, misconceived, contrary to facts and the record, and is directly contrary to settled law”.

Recently, the Goa government moved the SC for an enhancement of Tejpal’s punishment by seeking life term.