Tarun Tejpal charged with rape of junior, pleads ‘not guilty’

PANAJI: Four years after Tehelka founder-editor Tarun Tejpal was arrested in an alleged sexual assault case, a Goa court on Thursday charged him with rape of a junior colleague in a five-star hotel on the outskirts of Panaji in November 2013.

The district and additional sessions court at Mapusa also charged him with other sections that include wrongful confinement, outraging modesty and assaulting or using criminal force on a woman. After the charge was framed, Tejpal pleaded not guilty, paving the way for a trial. The court will hear the case again on November 21.

Earlier this month, Tejpal had, through a criminal revision application, challenged the September 7 order of the court to frame charges on September 28.The high court of Bombay at Goa had declined to stay framing of charge but said the trial would not begin till disposal of the application and asked the state to reply on Tejpal's plea on November 1. The Supreme Court in 2014 had directed that the trial be expedited.

Tejpal became the first high-profile personality in the country to be arrested under the new Anti-rape law, which was notified after the Nirbhaya incident.

Earlier, Tejpal's lawyer Rajiv Gomes contended before the trial court that it would be inappropriate to go ahead with the framing of charge till the disposal of the revision application before the HC. "...We are confident that there is no case with the prosecution and Tarun Tejpal will be discharged of the charges," Gomes told reporters.