Bombay High Court overturns Tarun Tejpal's 'perverse' acquittal, sentences him to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment

Mumbai: In a scathing indictment of the trial court's handling of the Tarun Tejpal rape case, the Bombay High Court on Thursday termed its acquittal order "perverse", saying it was influenced by stereotypes about how a assault survivor should behave, misread evidence and relied on legally inadmissible material.

Setting aside the acquittal and convicting former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal for rape and allied offences, a division bench held that the trial court's appreciation of evidence was "not only unreasonable but perverse", and that its conclusions were "untenable" and "not a possible view" on the material placed before it. The court sentenced Tejpal to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment.

In November 2013, Tejpal's former junior colleague had accused him of sexually assaulting her in a hotel's elevator during the ThinkFest event in Goa. In 2021, a session court had acquitted Tejpal in the case.


The HC said the trial judge repeatedly evaluated the complainant against the mythical standard of an "ideal victim", expecting her to conform to stereotypical notions of how a survivor of sexual assault should react.

"The trial court proceeded on a notion that a victim of sexual assault must behave in a stereotypical manner. PW-1 was to be a perfect victim and only then could thecCourts believe her story of woe," the bench observed.

Rejecting that approach, the court said the concept of the "perfect victim" is a myth, emphasising that survivors cope with trauma differently and cannot be disbelieved merely because they continue working, socialise, delay reporting the offence or do not appear visibly traumatised.

The bench noted that the complainant, then a young journalist, continued discharging her responsibilities at the fest after the alleged assault because she feared losing her job at the hands of a powerful employer. Expecting her to abandon the event or sacrifice a significant professional opportunity merely to fit societal expectations of victimhood, it said, was wholly unjustified.

The HC was particularly critical of the trial court drawing adverse inferences from the complainant's conduct after the incident, including that she smiled during work engagements, allegedly danced at a club and consumed alcohol.

"The trial court ignored the human coping mechanisms," it observed.

The bench also faulted the trial for permitting an "invasive and humiliating" cross-examination into the complainant's sexual history, moral views and WhatsApp conversations despite statutory prohibitions against using such material to assess the credibility of a rape survivor. According to the HC, the trial court relied on "extraneous, inadmissible material" to censure the complainant's character rather than evaluate the prosecution's evidence in accordance with settled legal principles.

It further held that the trial court erred in treating the complainant's consultation with lawyers and an NGO as evidence of possible fabrication.

The bench also said the trial court wrongly treated minor inconsistencies in statements recorded years after the incident as material contradictions.