The Goa government has approached the Supreme Court, seeking a tougher jail sentence for former Tehelka magazine editor Tarun Tejpal in a 2013 rape case, reported PTI news agency on Tuesday.
A Bombay HC bench of justices Neela Gokhale and Amit Jamsandekar held that the trial court’s appreciation of evidence was not only unreasonable but perverse, adding that its evaluation of the testimony exhibited multiple fatal flaws, HT reported earlier. “We will be appealing against this order. We feel the order is wrong.
Earlier this month, the Bombay high court in Goa had overturned a trial court’s 2022 acquittal of Tejpal, sentencing him to 10 years in jail for raping a junior colleague during the ThinkFest conference at a five-star hotel in Goa in 2013.
The high court had also observed that the trial court’s findings were “directly contrary” to the evidence on record. Tarun Tejpal reacted to his conviction by the Bombay High Court and said he believed the order was “wrong. We will be moving to the Supreme Court against the order,” Tejpal told reporters.
That I’m a journalist for Tehelka. The government has been after me for the past 13 years. Citing his age of 62 years, Tejpal also sought leniency from the court.
He also referred to himself as a “political victim” before the court. “I told the judge that I’m a political victim. I’m not alone in this,” Tejpal said.
