Court Acquits Former Indian Editor of Rape Charges

An Indian court on Friday acquitted Tarun Tejpal, a  high-profile former editor of Tehelka magazine, of charges of raping a young female colleague in 2013.

The woman had accused Tejpal, 58, of assaulting her in an elevator at a hotel in Goa during an event organised by Tehelka.

Tejpal had spent seven months in a jail in Goa before the Supreme Court granted him bail in July 2014.

Tejpal was charged with rape, sexual harassment and wrongful restraint and the trial began in 2017.

On Friday, the court in Goa’s Mapusa town dismissed all charges against Tejpal, a defence lawyer said.

The prosecution is expected to appeal against the verdict in a higher court.

Workplace sexual harassment, especially by those in positions of power, is hardly discussed in India and the case was seen as an attempt by a young colleague to call out such an incident.

But Tejpal has maintained the allegations were false and were made as part of a political vendetta by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party which rules Goa, because of his criticism of the party.

Tejpal launched Tehelka in 2000, it made a name for breaking major investigative stories often based on sting operations.

These included Operation West End in 2001 in which Tehelka reporters posing as arm dealers secretly filmed officials and politicians including of the then ruling Bharatiya Janata Party accepting bribes to push through fake arms deals.

In a statement read outside the court by his daughter, Tejpal thanked the judge for standing by the truth and mentioned the catastrophic fallout of the false allegations on his family.