PANAJI
In one of its strongest criticisms of a trial court’s handling of a sexual assault case, the High Court of Bombay at Goa described the acquittal of Tehelka founder Tarun Tejpal as “per se perverse”.
Pronouncing its order after a five-year-long hearing of the State’s appeal, the Division Bench of Justice Neela Gokhale and Justice Amit Jamsandekar observed that the trial court’s findings were directly contrary to the evidence on record and were based on stereotypes, inadmissible material and a flawed assessment of the evidence. “The Trial Court’s findings are directly contrary to the evidence on record and thus per se perverse... Its appreciation of evidence was not only unreasonable but perverse and that the view expressed by it is not a possible view,” read an extract from the 81-page order pronounced on Thursday.
‘PER SE PERVERSE’
The High Court also found that the trial court had relied on stereotypical assumptions about how a sexual assault survivor should behave. It criticised the lower court for drawing adverse inferences because the survivor had no visible injuries, had not physically resisted in the manner expected by the court and continued to smile during work engagements after the incident. “In doing so, the Court relied on stereotypical assumptions about how an ‘ideal’ victim should physically resist or emotionally react, going so far as to hold her smiling demeanour during subsequent work events against her,” it observed.
CONVERSATIONS MISREAD
The Bench also faulted the trial court for misinterpreting the survivor’s conversations with her colleagues and mother, treating them with suspicion instead of recognising them as confidences shared with trusted people. It further held that the trial court had wrongly viewed her inability to access a seven-year-old email account after surrendering her mobile phone to the police as evidence affecting her credibility. The High Court said the assessment of the survivor’s testimony was riddled with several serious flaws arising from preconceived notions and reliance on irrelevant or inadmissible material.
APOLOGY EMAILS
The High Court was equally critical of the trial court’s treatment of Tejpal’s apology emails. Rejecting the finding that the emails contained no admission of sexual assault, the Bench observed that they “clearly relate to an ‘encounter’, ‘sexual liaison’ and ‘furtive acts’”, and noted that the respondent had issued “two apologies -- one formal and the other personal”. It said the trial court had, without any substantive material, accepted the defence claim that the apologies were written under pressure.
The Bench also held that the trial court had misapplied settled legal principles by disregarding admissions contained in the apology emails, while relying on hearsay evidence and giving undue weight to defence witnesses over consistent prosecution testimony.
‘HUMILIATING’ CROSS-EXAMINATION
In one of its strongest observations, the High Court condemned the manner in which the survivor was cross-examined during the trial. “Most glaringly, the Court permitted an invasive, humiliating cross-examination into the victim’s past sexual history, moral views, and personal WhatsApp messages, directly violating statutory embargoes under the IEA that prohibit questioning a victim’s character or past relationships,” the order stated.
The Bench further observed that the trial court appeared to have been “influenced by extraneous, inadmissible material and testimony, including graphic details of the victim’s past sexual history, which are prohibited by law, and used them to censure her character and discredit her evidence”.
MINOR INCONSISTENCIES
The High Court further held that the trial court had wrongly treated minor omissions and inconsistencies in the survivor’s testimony, recorded years after the incident, as material contradictions instead of applying settled Supreme Court precedents that such discrepancies do not undermine an otherwise reliable prosecution case. “The victim has made truthful statements, and the prosecution has established the case against the Respondent beyond every reasonable doubt... The trial court had erred in granting the benefit of doubt where none reasonably existed,” it said while summing up its conclusions and overturning Tejpal’s acquittal.
