Panaji: A two-word text saying “the fingertips” and sent past midnight to a young woman by a man old enough to be her father can’t be brushed aside in the context of a rape case involving the two, the Goa govt argued in Bombay high court this week while appealing the 2021 acquittal of journalist and Tehelka founder Tarun Tejpal.The case, based on a suo motu FIR registered by Goa Police in Nov 2013, dragged for almost eight years before a sessions court in Mapusa absolved Tejpal of the charge of sexually assaulting a colleague in a five-star hotel lift, citing lapses in the investigation and alleged contradictions in the survivor’s testimony. The alleged sexual assault occurred on the sidelines of an event co-organised by Tehelka.Solicitor general Tushar Mehta termed the trial court’s consideration of the evidence placed before it “perversity at its peak” while questioning the defence’s focus on the survivor’s past interactions with the accused, including messages exchanged between them.“If a girl is talking about sexual overtones, some messages, jokes which have some adult content, then it’s ok to do whatever the accused did? This cannot be the ground for defence,” he said. “Whether we like it or not, this generation sends such messages…that doesn’t mean she’s agreeing or consenting to having sexual intercourse or oral sex.”The two-word text Mehta referred to as being crucial to the rape case was sent at 12.16am, hours after the alleged sexual assault. Due to network instability at the hotel where the alleged crime occurred, the text was delivered at 1.17am. “What can be the meaning of the context of a message sent after midnight, saying ‘the fingertips’? There cannot be any other meaning, to my limited understanding,” the solicitor general said.On the trial court’s observation that the survivor was “slightly drunk” that night, Mehta said this too couldn’t justify what happened. “You cannot do this even to a drunk woman or a prostitute,” he said.Mehta also challenged the trial court’s contention that while the survivor physically resisted the alleged sexual assault, she did not suffer any injury and did not try to scratch the accused or bang the walls of the lift for help.The trial court had deemed the survivor’s account of what happened in that lift “a narrative of extreme implausibility”, observing that a woman described as “aware of laws, intelligent, alert, and physically fit (a yoga trainer)” would not fail to push or ward off the accused.The solicitor general next addressed the trial court’s observation that the survivor did confide in or cry in the presence of a close male friend she met immediately after,“They were in a party. She’s a professional journalist, a mature and educated girl, and she wouldn’t create a scene by crying in public. She was the host, the person who was supposed to accompany and escort the main guest, Robert De Niro (the Hollywood actor). She can’t start crying in the presence of hundreds of people in the hotel,” Mehta said.He said a “major portion” of the trial court’s decision to acquit Tejpal rested on the testimony of this witness – the survivor’s male friend – despite him deposing in cross-examination that he had no knowledge of the incident.To the allegation that the survivor told her mother that Tejpal only kissed her and pulled her dress up and her undergarment down, Mehta said, “Could a girl tell this (further details of the alleged assault) to her mother?”CCTV footage from the hotel was shown to the judges in their chamber during the hearing.Mehta told the court, “If the prosecutrix wanted to have a sexual liaison with this man, would she prefer to have it in a lift? They were in a hotel. They could have gone into any room.”He alleged that the trial court erroneously accepted the defence’s theory that it was the survivor who coaxed Tejpal into accompanying her to De Niro’s suite at the hotel.Mehta said the trial court “ignored” Tejpal’s apology, in which he described what happened as the “encounter”. Nobody disputed the apology, Mehta. He said it was not possible that Tejpal was pressured and intimidated into signing an apology drafted by the then managing editor of Tehelka, who was his employee.The survivor never wanted to harm or tarnish Tejpal’s image, Mehta said. She only wanted the organisation to constitute a committee under the Vishaka guidelines. The managing editor said she wouldn’t do so because Tejpal had admitted to her charges. Mehta said the managing editor accepted the survivor’s allegations and said no inquiry was necessary. “The motive is absent as she never goes to the police herself,” he said.Tejpal’s lawyer sought access to CCTV footage, texts and other records from the court, saying both trial court defence lawyers had died. The bench permitted the sealed records to be opened in both sides’ presence.
