Verdict is survivor’s worst nightmare
There is no better example for why the #MeToo movement stands as an indictment of due process than the 527-page order of an additional sessions court judge acquitting former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal of the charges of rape. Tejpal was accused of raping a junior colleague in the lift of a Goa hotel in November 2013.
More than seven years later, in acquitting the accused, the court’s verdict reads as a sexual assault survivor’s worst nightmare.
First, the prosecutrix’s identity—which must be protected by law—is revealed or hinted at throughout the verdict. The Bombay High Court had to direct that the details be redacted. Second, the prosecutrix’s sexual history is discussed repeatedly in detail, despite courts—and Section 53A of the Indian Evidence Act—stating that it is not relevant in deciding matters of consent. Third, while the court dwells at length on many minor discrepancies between the prosecutrix’s letters to her employers and friends and statements to police, it accepts at face value all the accused’s claims. Fourth, the court refuses to consider the accused’s informal and formal written apologies to the woman as evidence, on questionable grounds. Closer scrutiny of these communications may have led the court to the heart of the matter—consent. Fifth, the judge resorts to the worst of rape myths to decide that the woman could not have been assaulted as she did not conform to behaviour that, to the judge, was appropriate to a victim of rape.
The court does point to glaring lapses in the investigation and prosecution that failed to prove the case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt. Yet, this determination comes at the end of a devastating attack on the character of the prosecutrix, whose feminist stance, education, career and even conversation with lawyers are treated as suspicious.
While the State of Goa has appealed the verdict, the judgment exemplifies why sexual assault survivors choose to remain silent rather than report the crimes. The Delhi gang rape of 2012, Criminal Law Amendment of 2013 and the #MeToo movement have significantly elevated discussions and understanding of sexual violence.
Yet, even in the year 2021, the justice system and judiciary have proven how much further there is to go.