Tarun Tejpal, 63, says that he’ll enchantment the conviction on the Supreme Court docket.
Revealed On 6 Aug 2026
An Indian court docket has sentenced a outstanding journalist to 10 years in jail for raping a junior colleague greater than a decade in the past, overturning an earlier acquittal.
Tarun Tejpal, 62, was accused of raping a female colleague in a carry at a five-star resort throughout a Tehelka journal occasion in 2013.
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The Goa bench of Bombay Excessive Court docket on Thursday additionally ordered Tejpal to pay a wonderful of $5,250.
“He has been convicted to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. He has been given two weeks’ time to give up,” Goa Police investigator Sunita Sawant, who led the investigation, informed reporters.
Tejpal denied the allegations and mentioned earlier than the decision that he would enchantment.
“All I can say is I’m 62. I consider I’m a political sufferer, I’m a father of two daughters. I’ve a spouse. All we are able to say is we are going to go up and enchantment. My lawyer needs me to request you to be lenient,” Tejpal informed the court docket forward of sentencing, in keeping with the Indian authorized information outlet Bar and Bench.
The allegations emerged throughout a interval of heightened public concern over sexual violence towards girls, culminating in mass protests after a 23-year-old scholar was gang raped on a bus in New Delhi in December 2012. In response, the federal government strengthened rape legal guidelines.
Thursday’s verdict overturned a 2021 acquittal by a Goa court docket, which dismissed costs of rape, sexual harassment and wrongful restraint towards Tejpal.
The Goa authorities challenged that call on the Bombay Excessive Court docket, resulting in the acquittal being overturned.
Following the allegations in November 2013, Tejpal initially described what occurred as “a foul lapse of judgement”. In an e-mail to workers, he wrote that “an terrible misreading of the state of affairs” had “led to an unlucky incident that rails towards all we consider in and combat for”.
Tejpal mentioned he would take six months’ depart of absence as “penance” for the assault, frightening anger and accusations that he had trivialised the matter. He was later arrested and spent seven months in jail earlier than being launched on bail by the Supreme Court docket.
He later alleged that the case towards him was a part of a “political vendetta” by the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) authorities in Goa.
