New Delhi:
Thirteen years ago, a journalist reached out for help to her boss at the news magazine Tehelka, distraught that the horror she faced in the hands of Tehelka co-founder Tarun Tejpal – who was the boss of her boss, Shoma Chaudhury – had been downplayed with “tactics of intimidation, character assassination and slander”.
Today, Tejpal was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail for raping his junior colleague in 2013. The former Tehelka editor-in-chief was acquitted by a trial court in 2021.
The trial court’s verdict, the Bombay High Court said today, was “perverse” for falling prey to the notion that the complainant in such cases should be a “perfect victim” and conduct herself in a certain way to appear credible.
Tejpal said he will challenge the high court verdict in the Supreme Court.
The survivor in her resignation letter to Chaudhury, then managing editor, said she was “shattered” to find Chaudhury saying one thing in internal communications with her, while saying something else completely different outside on national TV.
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