The Goa authorities has approached the Supreme Court docket searching for enhancement of the sentence imposed on former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal within the 2013 rape case, asking that he be sentenced to life imprisonment as an alternative of the 10-year rigorous imprisonment awarded by the Bombay Excessive Court docket.
The State clarified it challenges solely the quantum of punishment and doesn’t search to reopen or query the findings of conviction recorded by the Excessive Court docket.
The Bombay Excessive Court docket’s Goa bench, comprising Justices Neela Gokhale and Amit Jamsandekar, had on August 6 overturned Tejpal’s acquittal by the trial courtroom and convicted him within the 2013 case. The courtroom subsequently sentenced him to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment.
The Excessive Court docket had famous that the incident came about 13 years in the past and that there was no report of any subsequent felony misconduct by Tejpal. It consequently declined the Goa authorities’s request for the utmost punishment of life imprisonment and imposed the minimal sentence prescribed for the rape conviction.
The case arose from allegations that Tejpal sexually assaulted a junior colleague inside an elevator at a luxurious lodge in Goa throughout an occasion organised by Tehelka in November 2013. The Goa Classes Court docket had acquitted him in 2021, following which the State challenged the acquittal earlier than the Bombay Excessive Court docket.
The Excessive Court docket convicted Tejpal underneath provisions of the Indian Penal Code regarding rape, sexual harassment and assault with intent to disrobe. The rape provision underneath which he was convicted carried a minimal punishment of 10 years and permitted a sentence extending to life imprisonment.
