RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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An Indian court has sentenced former Tehelka magazine editor Tarun Tejpal to 10 years in prison for raping a former colleague, overturning his 2021 acquittal in a decade-old case.
The Goa bench of the Bombay High Court convicted Tejpal under sections of Indian law pertaining to rape and sexual harassment.
Along with jail terms which run concurrently, the court has also ordered him to pay fines adding up to more than 1mn rupees ($10,500; £7,800).
Tejpal, who has denied the accusations, said before the sentencing that he would file an appeal in the Supreme Court.
The allegations against Tejpal, one of India's best-known editors, had made national headlines in 2013. A year before that, thousands of Indians had participated in protests after a brutal gang rape and murder of a woman in Delhi, leading to a larger conversation on sexual violence.
Tejpal's accuser, who cannot be identified under Indian law, said that he sexually assaulted her in a lift during Tehelka's high-profile international conference in Goa in November 2013, an event attended by, among others, Hollywood star Robert De Niro.
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Tejpal initially blamed the assault on "a lapse of judgement" and "a misreading of the situation" which had "led to an unfortunate incident that rails against all we believe in and fight for".
But as the case escalated, he issued a statement urging authorities to examine the CCTV footage "so the accurate version of events stands clearly revealed". He also alleged that the case against him was part of a "political vendetta" by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Goa.
Tehelka, the magazine Tejpal co-founded in 2000, had published a number of scoops, many of them based on sting operations.
Some of these stories - including Operation West End in which some of its journalists posed as arms dealers, secretly filming senior army officials, bureaucrats and even the president of the then ruling BJP taking bribes to push through a fake deal - created national and international ripples.
Tejpal was arrested in 2013 and spent seven months in jail until the Supreme Court granted him bail.
In 2021, a sessions court in Goa threw out all the charges against him. But the judge's observations in the 527-page order sparked criticism after she questioned the behaviour of the survivor. .
In photographs taken shortly after the assault, the judge wrote, the young woman was "smiling and looked happy, normal, in [a] good mood".
"She did not look disturbed, reserved, terrified or traumatised in any way even though this was immediately after she claims to have been sexually assaulted," the order said.
The Goa government had appealed against the acquittal in the high court.
Appearing for the Goa government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had urged the high court to impose the maximum sentence on Tejpal.
"This court must give a clear message to society that when a girl says no, it means no," Livelaw quoted him as saying.
"All I can say is I am 62. I believe I am a political victim. I am a father of two daughters. I have a wife. All we can say is we will go up and appeal. My lawyer wants me to request you to be lenient," legal website Bar and Bench quoted Tejpal as telling the court before the sentencing.
Tejpal was found guilty under legal sections including 376(2)(f), which pertains to rape committed by "a relative, guardian or teacher of, or a person in a position of trust or authority towards the woman".
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