New Delhi: Cara Tejpal, daughter of former journalist Tarun Tejpal, expressed her family’s ongoing distress, stating that their “nightmare of 13 years continues” following her father’s conviction and 10-year prison sentence in a 2013 rape case. Her remarks came four days after the Bombay High Court’s Goa Bench delivered its ruling.
Cara Tejpal, 36, strongly criticized the High Court’s verdict as a “miscarriage of justice,” drawing a stark contrast between the time dedicated to the case by the High Court and the trial court, and the opposing outcomes. In a detailed Substack post titled “The ‘Apologies’ Matter,” she highlighted the disparity: “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.”
She further noted that the sessions court trial, which involved 70 prosecution witnesses, was exhaustive and resulted in a 527-page judgment leading to a complete acquittal.
Tarun Tejpal, the former editor-in-chief of Tehelka, was convicted of raping a junior colleague in a hotel elevator in 2013 during a magazine event in Goa. In May 2021, the Goa Sessions Court had acquitted him, citing the prosecution’s failure to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, and pointing to a lack of medical evidence and messages between Tejpal and the complainant that did not support her trauma claim. Last week, the Bombay High Court described the trial court’s 2021 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 wrote.
Echoing her father’s assertion of “political vendetta,” Cara Tejpal maintained that the desire to “nail a powerful man” appears “more seductive than the search for truth.” She suggested that some people’s “personal experience, professional jealousy or terrible dogma” prevent them from objectively evaluating the evidence, while others “can smell something fishy.”
Addressing the common references to two emails sent by her father to the complainant, Cara dismissed them as “flimsy proof” of a confession. She clarified that the first email, a personal apology, contained no words interpretable as a confession of assault or rape. The second email, sent to the entire Tehelka office, was written by the then-Managing Editor, not her father, with the aim of appeasing the complainant, protecting the institution, and providing closure. She added that both emails were sent on November 19, 2013, mere minutes apart, and were quickly leaked to the press, causing a media sensation. By November 22, 2013, her father had resigned from Tehelka.
Cara Tejpal also highlighted the absence of “physical evidence of violence or assault” and claimed that “CCTV footage directly contradicts the complainant’s narrative.” She expressed her dismay, stating, “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, asserted that the evidence should have led to his acquittal “10 times over” and vowed to challenge the Bombay High Court’s “wrong” judgment in the Supreme Court.
Cara Tejpal acknowledged the painful reality of potentially accompanying her father to a Goa jail within weeks, a familiar experience for the family. “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 shared.
Despite the challenges, the 36-year-old expressed gratitude for the support of friends and family who stand by them despite facing “insults and hate.” She concluded her post by stating, “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.”
