The Bombay High Court on Thursday reserved its judgment on the appeal filed by the State of Goa challenging the acquittal of former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal in the 2013 sexual assault case.
A Division Bench of Justice Neela Gokhale and Justice Amit Borkar Jamsandekar concluded hearings after seven sessions and reserved its verdict in the matter.
Appearing for the State, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that the trial court had improperly shifted the focus from the conduct of the accused to the character and personal life of the complainant. He contended that the acquittal was based on a selective appreciation of evidence and findings unsupported by law, rendering the judgment perverse.
The State submitted that the complainant was subjected to intrusive and irrelevant cross-examination concerning her consensual sexual history, drinking and smoking habits, despite statutory safeguards protecting survivors of sexual offences. It argued that the trial court should have curtailed such questioning.
Mehta further contended that the trial court wrongly relied on WhatsApp conversations and the complainant’s lifestyle to draw conclusions about consent. He maintained that post-incident behaviour cannot be assessed through stereotypical notions of how a survivor of sexual assault is expected to react, and that the complainant’s testimony remained consistent on material particulars throughout the trial. The State also relied on an apology email allegedly sent by Tejpal, arguing that it undermined the defence’s claim that no incident had occurred.
Opposing the appeal, Senior Advocate Aabad Ponda, appearing for Tejpal, defended the acquittal and argued that it was based on a comprehensive evaluation of the evidence, including CCTV footage, panchanama records and expert testimony regarding the functioning of the hotel lift where the alleged incident took place.
The defence contended that the complainant’s version was contradicted by objective evidence, including CCTV footage showing her movements before and after the alleged assault. It also pointed to alleged inconsistencies in her account regarding the sequence of events inside the lift and relied on electronic communications exchanged after the incident to argue that the prosecution had failed to establish that any sexual assault had occurred.
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