Trial courtroom discovering ‘coloured by prejudice and patriarchy’; Goa Govt seeks retrial of Tejpal rape case

Seeking a retrial within the case the place Tarun Tejpal, the previous Editor-in-Chief of Tehelka, was acquitted of sexual assault costs, the Goa authorities has, in its amended enchantment filed within the High Court of Bombay at Goa, acknowledged that the trial courtroom had disbelieved the lady who accused him of the offence “on the basis of a conception of how a victim is expected to behave while being sexually assaulted”. This discovering of the courtroom, the state authorities stated, was “unsustainable in law and is coloured by prejudice and patriarchy”.
On May 27, the High Court had allowed the Goa authorities, represented by Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, Advocate General of Goa Devidas Pangam and Additional Additional Public Prosecutor Pravin Faldessai, to amend its enchantment after the 527-page judgment of the Sessions Court was made accessible. Requesting the courtroom to listen to the Goa authorities’s enchantment on the earliest, Mehta advised the holiday bench of the High Court on May 27, “We owe it to our girls that the court hears it at the earliest.”
The High Court is predicted to listen to the case on Wednesday, June 2.
In its amended grounds for enchantment that run into 66 pages, the Goa authorities has acknowledged that the judgment delivered by Additional Sessions Judge Kshama Joshi “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 (Tejpal).”
“The cross-examination of PW1 (the woman) extending to almost 700 pages, spread over eighteen dates of hearing, 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 PW1, although they were neither relevant to the case, nor could they have been put to PW1 under law,” the state authorities contended.
The trial courtroom had additionally noticed that the sufferer had made “improvements” to her model of the incident and there have been contradictions and inconsistencies in her account of the incident that befell in a resort elevator in Goa on November 7, 2013, and November 8, 2013. “The Trial Court ought to have taken into account that the case related to November 2013 and the witness was called to the stand for the first time on 15.03.2018. Her cross-examination commenced on 21.10.2019 and concluded on 04.01.2021. Given the passage of time, it is only natural and human that some peripheral details were not recollected by the witness,” the enchantment stated.
The authorities acknowledged that the “demeaning and humiliating manner” wherein the trial courtroom’s judgment positioned reliance on the trivialities of the happenings contained in the raise “displays an attitudinal and perceptional bias” towards the lady and it “tended to demoralise” her, the amended enchantment states.
Contesting Tejpal’s acquittal, the Goa authorities has additionally acknowledged that the trial courtroom was “pedantic, illogical and harsh” in contemplating the assertion of the lady.
“Because the trial court allowed scandalous, irrelevant and humiliating questions put to PW1 (Prosecution witness no.1, the woman), to overwhelm the record of the case without any check or scrutiny, betraying a complete lack of understanding of the statutory provisions and the law laid down in this regard by the Hon’ble Supreme Court. This fact itself, accompanied by other attendant circumstances, clearly makes out a case for retrial in accordance with law,” the enchantment states.
In her judgment, Additional Sessions Judge Joshi had made a number of observations of the sufferer showing “happy and cheerful” after the incident which the courtroom felt was unnatural.
The enchantment filed by the state authorities stated, “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 Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in such matters”. The state authorities argued that “if the law laid down by the trial court is correct, looking ‘traumatised’ after such incident is sine qua non and an educated girl who chooses not to create a scene is not a reliable witness”.
The enchantment additionally acknowledged that the trial courtroom had ignored a “telling piece of evidence” that have been the statements of three colleagues of the lady, who she had advised in regards to the alleged sexual assault quickly after it befell. While the courtroom had disregarded their statements, it had accepted the statements of 4 defence witnesses as “gospel truth” regardless of their closeness to Tejpal. “This clearly demonstrates the dual standard of appreciating evidence adopted by the Trial Court,” the enchantment stated.
In a “preposterous reading” of the proof, the state authorities stated, the trial decide held that the apology e-mail despatched by Tejpal to the sufferer on November 18, 2013, was inadmissible. Section 24 of the Indian Evidence Act renders a confession irrelevant in a felony continuing whether it is brought on by inducement, risk or promise.
“The trial court has not given any cogent finding as to how a person of the education, age and maturity of the Respondent Accused (Tejpal), in a position of power over the prosecutrix (PW1), could in any manner be pressured into making an apology or admission,” the federal government’s enchantment acknowledged.
The trial courtroom additionally held that the prosecution within the case couldn’t show that the raise wherein the alleged incident of sexual assault befell may have been saved in movement with out its doorways opening on every ground. The enchantment, nevertheless, cites the proof of a technical witness who “deposed that for as long as the red button is in the stop mode, the elevator will not be in motion…”
The Goa authorities acknowledged that the trial courtroom had “perversely cast aspersions on the Investigating Officer” concerning procuring the recordings (DVR) of the CCTV footage on November 29, 2013, and suggesting that the investigating officer had “destroyed the CCTV footage of the primary ground of November 7, 2013.
“The Trial Court has, however, conveniently and prejudicially ignored the fact that the original DVRs are deposited before the Hon’ble Court (HC) and have also been forensically examined by CFSL, Hyderabad, first at the request of the police and then subsequently pursuant to the order of the Apex Court.”