Supreme Court rejects Tarun Tejpal’s plea, asks him to surrender within 2 weeks

The Supreme Court has denied former Tehelka magazine editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal's plea for exemption from surrendering in a rape conviction, ordering him to surrender within two weeks. A single-judge bench, led by Justice Alok Aradhe, granted him the two-week deadline to submit a surrender certificate. If Tejpal provides the certificate by September 22, his main appeal challenging the August 6 ruling of the Bombay High Court in Goa, which convicted and sentenced him to 10 years in jail, will be scheduled for hearing on September 22.

The Bombay High Court had previously given Tejpal four weeks to surrender. Tejpal's legal team cited provisions of the Supreme Court (Enlargement of Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction) Act, 1970, arguing that he should be heard immediately, as the case involved an earlier acquittal that was overturned in the High Court. However, the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, represented the Goa government and disputed the relevance of the 1970 Act in the context of granting an exemption from surrender.

The court then moved to reject the exemption application and instructed Tejpal to surrender. The incident in question occurred in November 2013, when Tejpal allegedly assaulted a woman on two occasions inside a hotel lift in Goa, where they were attending a literary festival. Initially acquitted in 2021, Tejpal's conviction was later upheld by the Goa High Court, which deemed the trial court's handling of the victim's character and personal information as unreasonable and perverse.