Bombay High Court to Rule on Tarun Tejpal Acquittal Appeal

Many years ago, in 2013, a woman who worked at a news magazine said that her boss, a famous journalist named Tarun Tejpal, hurt her inside a hotel elevator during an event called ThinkFest in Goa.

The police took the case to a trial court, and in 2021 that court decided Tejpal was not guilty.

The Goa government did not agree with that decision and asked a higher court, the Bombay High Court, to look at the case again.

The High Court listened to lawyers from both sides over three days and kept its decision for later.

The government's lawyer said the first judge made a mistake by expecting all victims of such a crime to behave in a certain way.

He also said an email in which Tejpal apologised showed that something did happen between them.

Tejpal's lawyer said the email was only an apology for a conversation, not a confession of a crime, and that it would have been impossible to keep the elevator moving in a loop as the woman described.

He also said hotel videos did not match her story.

Now the High Court will announce its decision on Thursday morning.

Tejpal has been told that he must be present in court when the decision is read out.