Vinay Kumar
PANAJI: Thirteen years after the arrest of a high profile editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine, Tarun Tejpal, for rape in an elevator of a starred hotel, the Bombay high court on Thursday found him guilty of rape and sentenced him to ten years Rigorous imprisonment.The HC has granted him two weeks time to surrender.The sentence was pronounced in the State’s challenge to Tejpal’s acquittal by the trial court in 2021.After the court found him guilty, senior advocate Aabad Ponda representing Tejpal sought lenient sentence for him on the grounds that he is a senior citizen today, aged 62 and that the case is a 13 year old one.Tejpal addressing the division bench of Justices Dr Neela Gokhale and Amit Jamsandekar said he is a “political victim” and is 62 years old and a father of two with a wife and sought a lenient sentence.He said that there is so much evidence in favour of him that he can be acquitted ten times.Solicitor general of India representing Goa Government Tushar Mehta however argued for maximum sentence for Tejpal. He urged the court to consider that Tejpal was old enough to be in a parental position vis-a vis the survivor and argued that the sentence should set a precedent and have a strong deterrent effect.Mehta said that this was not some “misunderstanding or some banter” and pointed out that Tejpal had no remorse after the incident and alleged that he repeated the same thing on the next day. He said Tejpal was brazen despite resistance and despite the survivor saying no.He further argued that the survivor’s mature conduct after the incident had been wrongly portrayed as that of someone who had enjoyed the molestation.“It is high time the highest constitutional court of the state gives him the maximum sentence. No means No. You may be whosoever you are but when a girl says no it means no. That deterrent message may be considered,” Mehta told the court while arguing on maximum sentence for him.
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Mehta during the hearings seeking Tejpal’s conviction argued that the survivor was a stellar witness and stood by her case and that Tejpal’s apology to her was proof of what he had done. He also argued that there was no reason for a man of her father’s age to send her such her the ‘the fingertips’ text message after midnight and that it could not reasonably have an innocent meaning. Ponda had countered that saying the ‘fingertips’ text message had a different context and did not prove charge of rape.He had argued that the survivor had a “propensity to lie” and that her behaviour after the alleged incident was not commensurate with someone who had been raped and traumatised.
