‘No template of apt behaviour after assault’: Experts on Tarun Tejpal verdict

The Mapusa sessions court acquitted journalist Tarun Tejpal, who was being tried for raping a junior colleague, and contended that the survivor’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 demonstrate any such behaviour on the part of the accused.” Former journalist Tarun Tejpal arrives for the verdict hearing of the sexual assault case in which he is accused of raping a female journalist in the lift of a five-star hotel in Goa in November 2013, at the district court of Mapusa in Goa on May 21, 2021. In the judgment, a copy of which was made available on Wednesday, Additional Sessions judge Kshama Joshi said that the prosecutrix did not prove herself a sterling witness, and pulled up the Goa police, which was investigating the case, for destroying evidence that was “inconvenient” to the investigation and would have proved Tejpal’s defence. In an internal email sent in the days following the incident, Tejpal had said: “I apologise unconditionally for the shameful lapse of judgement that led me to attempt a sexual liaison with you on two occasions on 7 November and 8 November 2013, despite your clear reluctance that you did not want such attention from me.” However, the judge said that the email did not constitute an admission of guilt. the word sexual assault or any of its attributes are neither implicitly nor explicitly stated in the said personal email… Even assuming that the personal email was sent to the prosecutrix, the contention of the accused that the said email had been sent involuntarily and against his wish and therefore would not be admissible against the accused has to be accepted,” the court said.