Tejpal case: Judiciary failed victim, country needs to know how, Tushar Mehta to Bombay HC

The judiciary as an institution has failed to mete justice to a rape victim, who had approached the Court with a complaint, specific allegations, precise facts and corroborative evidence and the country needs to know the reasons why, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday, while making a case for appeal against the acquittal of the former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal in a rape case filed in 2013 by a junior colleague.

Commenting on a plea for in-camera trial by Tejpal's counsel Amit Desai, Mehta also broke down a colloquial phrase related to "removal of clothes" suggesting that while in court, a rapist is also stripped off his clothes, which is why his lawyers offer plea for in-camera proceedings.

"The way in which our institution has failed, I am using every word not only with sincerity, but with a sense of responsibility. Our institution has failed, leaving an inevitable impression upon all victims of sexual violence or sexual onslaught that it has a deterrent effect among those who are potential victims," Mehta told Justices Sunil Deshkmukh and Mahesh Sonak of the Bombay High Court bench in Goa.

"They (sexual assault victims) would not come before your lordship or not come before the Court of law. The country has a right to know what happened with the girl who came to the Court with the complaint, specific allegations, precise facts, pleaded proved with corroborating evidence," said the Solicitor General of India, who is representing the Goa government in the appeal case.

A junior colleague at Tehelka had accused Tejpal of allegedly raping her twice at a five-star resort in Goa. In May this year, a Goa Court had acquitted Tejpal of all charges levelled against under sections 376 (rape), 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement) 354A (sexual harassment) and 354B (criminal assault), of the Indian Penal Code, following which the Goa government had filed an appeal against the acquittal before the Bombay High Court.

Tejpal's counsel, Desai, while cautioning against commenting against the judiciary "just because the Government of Goa did not appreciate the outcome" of the case, also pleaded for an in-camera hearing of the appeal hearing, arguing that the trial itself was conducted in-camera.

Responding to the request made by Desai, Mehta offered a cryptic response.

"...I must say and this is not my argument, this is on the lighter side. Your lordships are aware my lord, in colloquial terms, there are two ways of removing clothes... a. Accused removes literally the clothes of the victim (in case of rape) and when the accused faces those allegations in a court of law, his clothes are being removed and therefore requests come to hold it in-camera," Mehta said.

"Here incidentally on the lighter side, even the evidence has been recorded in-camera. It is captured in camera and we are relying upon CCTV camera," Mehta said, referring to hotel CCTV footage which has been cited on numerous occasions by the defence and prosecution lawyers during the trial to make their case.

The next hearing in the appeal is scheduled for August 31.