"Surreal Watching Country Celebrate It": Tarun Tejpal's Daughter On His Conviction

The family is all too familiar with this, former journalist Tarun Tejpal's daughter, Cara, said, four days after her father was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail in a 2013 rape case, adding that the family's "nightmare of 13 years continues".

Tejpal's daughter called the ruling by the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court a "miscarriage of justice", contrasting it with the time spent on the case by the high court and the trial court and the two opposite verdicts.

"With a complete acquittal in hand and a mountain of evidence at hand, we could not fathom such a miscarriage of justice. The honourable lady judge of the sessions court granted an acquittal after hearing, watching and appreciating the evidence in the case for nearly a year. The honourable lady judge of the high court heard the matter for 7 days and delivered her verdict within 4 days of arguments being concluded and receiving written submissions," Cara Tejpal, 36, said in a long substack post titled "The 'Apologies' Matter".

She said that the trial at the sessions court went on for months and was granular in detail, with the prosecution calling 70 witnesses to the stand.

"That trial resulted in a complete acquittal, and a 527 page judgement," she said.

Tejpal, former editor-in-chief of Tehelka, was convicted of raping a junior colleague inside a hotel elevator in 2013 during an event organised by the magazine in Goa.

In May 2021, the Goa Sessions Court acquitted Tejpal of all charges, ruling that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, citing the absence of medical evidence and messages between the complainant and Tejpal that the court said did not support her claim of trauma. Last week, the Bombay High Court termed the trial court's 2021 verdict of acquittal as "perverse".

"For now our nightmare of 13 years continues. We are dealing with the inscrutable machinations of the system. We are dealing with the emotional devastation of the verdict. We are dealing with the abuse and slander on social media," Cara Tejpal said.

Cara, like her father who claims it is "political vendetta" against him, maintains that the idea of "nailing a powerful man" appears "more seductive than the search for truth" 

"There are those who have made up their minds about the case. Perhaps their own personal experience, professional jealousy or terrible dogma does not allow them to really see the evidence at hand. For them the idea of nailing 'a powerful man' and the virtuous validation that comes with it will always be more seductive than the tedious and painful search for the truth," she said, adding there are others "who can smell something fishy, who have realised what this case is about".

Pointing out that in the "rabid discourse" on social media, one thing that constantly comes up are two emails sent by her father to the complainant. She called them a "flimsy proof" of her father's confession of the crime.

"The first email marked personal apology does not have a single word that can be interpreted as a confession of assault or rape. The other email, that was sent to the entire Tehelka office, was not written by my father. It was written by the Managing Editor of Tehelka at the time to appease the complainant, protect the institution and provide closure on the matter as demanded by the complainant. This was unequivocally proved in the sessions court," she said in her post.

She further says that both emails were sent on 19th November 2013, a mere three minutes apart.

"They were almost immediately leaked to the press and caused a media sensation beyond all reason. By 22nd November 2013, my father had recused himself from his position at Tehelka and sent out a single press release," she said.

Cara claims there's no "physical evidence of violence or assault" and "CCTV footage directly contradicts the complainant's narrative".

"It is quite surreal to be in this position, witnessing the wrongful conviction of one's beloved parent, and watching the country celebrate it. I am confounded that anybody would think such a conviction is just. A case of an alleged incident that lasted 126 seconds and of which there is no physical evidence of violence or assault, in which the existing CCTV footage directly contradicts the complainant's narrative, and in which the malafide intent of the state is so clear. There should in fact, be no case at all."

Tarun Tejpal, speaking to reporters before his sentencing, said there's so much evidence that he "should have been acquitted 10 times over". He said he would challenge the Bombay High Court's judgment, which he said was wrong, in the Supreme Court.

Cara said she is all too aware that in about four weeks she will be dropping her father to a jail in Goa, something the family has been through before.

"I am viscerally, painfully aware that in less than a month I could be dropping my father to Colvale prison to serve a 10 year sentence of rigorous imprisonment. He is already in his mid sixties, and when he emerges he will be an old man. The thought is almost too unbearable to write down. But then again, we have had a taste of this before. Between 2013 and 2014, he spent six months in the Vasco jail as an undertrial prisoner before we could secure bail from the Supreme Court," she said.

The 36-year-old says she counts herself "lucky" as she has friends and family standing by them despite the "hate that comes their way".

"I still consider myself a lucky woman. Lucky because I am no longer so afraid and because we have friends and family that stand by us despite the insults and hate that subsequently comes their way. Lucky too because I have been brought up to face any challenge with equanimity and reason come what may," she said, ending her post.