NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday directed a Goa court to complete the trial against
Tehelka magazine’s founder Tarun
Tejpal in a case of alleged rape lodged by a former woman colleague, within a year.
The apex court asked Tejpal to serve a copy of his petition challenging the Bombay High Court’s December 20, 2017 order dismissing his plea for quashing of rape charges to the Goa government.
A bench of Justices A K Sikri and
Ashok Bushan posted the matter for further hearing on April 24 and asked the Goa government to file its reply on Tejpal’s petition.
During the hearing, senior advocate Kapil
Sibal said there were several inconsistencies in the statements recorded by the victim and the CCTV footage, but the trial court has not considered it.
He said when the proceedings had started, the police had not given him the clone copy of cellphone recordings saying there was no such technology available.
“They gave us the clone copy of the phone only after two years when there was order from the court. From the clone copy, we can establish the conversation between the victim and the accused which had taken place before the alleged incident,” Sibal said.
Representative image 
