The Bombay High Court’s Goa bench on Thursday found former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal guilty of rape, setting aside the sessions court verdict that had cleared him four years ago. Tejpal has asked the bench to take a lenient view before it pronounces the quantum of sentence in the afternoon.
The case dates to November 2013, when a journalist working at the magazine alleged that Tejpal assaulted her on two consecutive nights. The sessions court dismissed the charges in 2021, reasoning that the complainant’s conduct after the incident did not match what it considered the expected reaction of someone who had been sexually assaulted. It pointed to messages she sent Tejpal afterwards as evidence that she showed no signs of fear or trauma, and treated this as fatal to the prosecution’s case. The Goa government appealed that decision.
