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‘Entire judgment focusses on...’: Goa govt substantiates appeal against Tejpal’s acquittal
Filing an amended appeal against the judgement, the Goa Police have said that the judgement “was shocking”.
The Goa government in its appeal filed before the Bombay High Court at Goa has assailed the judgement of Additional Sessions Judge Kshama Joshi calling it “perverse” and “influenced by extraneous inadmissible materials and testimonies, graphic details of the past sexual history of the victim.”
Filing an amended appeal against the judgement, the Goa Police have said that the judgement, which was passed two weeks back, “was shocking in its apparent legal bias against the prosecutrix” (survivor) and that the judgement was “unsustainable in law and is coloured by prejudice and patriarchy” and that “much of the impugned judgment has been consumed by sexual gossip and alleged sexual fantasies related to the prosecutrix which were legally prohibited.”
The former editor of Tehelka magazine was accused of raping a junior colleague in an elevator of a five-star hotel in Goa during the THiNK festival in November 2013. The complainant alleged that Tejpal had raped her in a lift in the hotel on November 7 and attempted to assault her again on November 8. Tejpal, who refuted the charges in court, was acquitted by the fast-track court on May 21. The Goa government filed an appeal against the verdict in the Bombay High Court last Tuesday.
The appeal is scheduled for hearing on Wednesday, June 2.
“The trial court in its 527-page-judgment has been influenced by extraneous inadmissible materials and testimonies, graphic details of the past sexual history of the victim, prohibited by law and has used the same for purposes of censuring her character and discrediting her evidence. The entire judgment focusses on indicting the complainant witness rather than trying to ascertain the culpable role of the Respondent Accused (Tarun Tejpal),” the appeal stated.
The Goa Police also said that the trial court has completely discarded the testimony of the survivor despite “her statement given in court, gave a clear and cogent account of the incidents of sexual harassment, rape, sexual assault, outraging of modesty, use of criminal force, and wrongful restraint and confinement that she was subjected to at the hands of the respondent accused, the then Editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine.”
“When it suggests that it is unsafe to rely on her testimony as she is well educated, a good writer, proficient in English and above all conversant with the rape law, and was a capable, intelligent, independent person, the trial court, unfortunately, deploys the prosecutrix’s strengths and accomplishments to dispute her testimony,” the prosecution argued.
“It appears that the victim’s work in the field of gender and an article on compensation for rape survivors authored by the prosecutrix and such other accomplishments have, in the eyes of the trial court, impacted her credibility,” the state’s appeal read.
The state has also contended that the judgement should be set aside and Tejpal should be convicted on the offences he was charged off since “the Court disbelieved the version of the prosecutrix on the basis of a conception of how a victim is expected to behave while being sexually assaulted.”
“The burden of expectation of “normative” behaviour is heavily and incorrectly placed by the trial court on the shoulders of the prosecutrix,” the state has argued, adding that the “trial court has drawn an adverse inference against the survivor for not looking sufficiently traumatised or appearing fearful after the two incidents and in the messages, she exchanged after the incidents.”
“The discrepancies that the prosecutrix attributes to the shock and trauma that she endured at the hands of a person in a position of trust and authority, who had assaulted and violated her have been disregarded, and her reactions are incorrectly treated as implausible without any logical or lawful reason,” the prosecution has argued.
“Not only do the above observations betray a complete lack of understanding of post-trauma behaviour of victims, they also demonstrate complete ignorance of the law as also of the directions and guidelines passed by the Supreme Court of India in such matters,” the state argued.
The state also argued that the victim was subjected to a rigorous cross-examination extending to almost 700 pages, spread over eighteen dates of hearing but which was “nothing short of a brutal attack on her character and alleged past sexual history designed to shame and humiliate her.”
“Not only should these questions have been disallowed while recording evidence, but the trial court has gone so far as to use these very questions and materials to discredit her, although they were neither relevant to the case, nor could they have been put to her under law,” the state has argued.
Tejpal who was relieved at being acquitted thanked judge Kshama Joshi for his acquittal.
“In November 2013, I was falsely accused of sexual assault by a colleague. Today, the Hon’ble trial court of Additional Sessions Judge Kshama Joshi, in Goa, has honourably acquitted me. In an awfully vitiated age, where ordinary courage has become rare, I thank her for standing by the truth,” he said.
