HC HEARING IN TARUN TEJPAL CASE ADJOURNED TILL 20 SEPTEMBER

PANAJI: The Bombay High Court at Goa on Tuesday adjourned the hearing on Goa Government’s appeal against senior journalist Tarun Tejpal’s acquittal in a rape case.

The matter has been fixed for hearing on September 20, 2021. A request is pending before the court for physical plus virtual hearing into the case. However, on Tuesday, Devidas Pangam, State Advocate General, and a lawyer representing the scribe sought time from the Bench of Justices M S Sonak and M S Jawalkar submitting that they were yet to file their applications before the Chief Justice for the hybrid hearing into the matter. The State Advocate General sought two weeks to apply.

The matter was for the first time taken up physically following the relaxation of SOPs by the state government due to a decline in the number of Covid-19 cases in the state.

Earlier, the senior journalist had sought from the High Court an ‘in-camera’ hearing of the Goa government’s petition challenging his acquittal of the 2013 rape case. He had also sought its dismissal raising questions on its maintainability.

A sessions court had acquitted the former editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine in the case in which he was accused of sexually assaulting his junior colleague in a lift of a star hotel while attending an event. The Goa government had filed an appeal against the acquittal in the High Court.