Back in 2013, REENA SINGH had penned an article published in The Speaking Tree—about Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka and his alleged sexual misconduct with a junior colleague. Here is an update based on the court judgement of August 6, 2026 alongwith her original article on the incident
I had written about Tarun Tejpal back in November 2013, a day after an FIR had been filed against him by the Goa police on the complaint of a junior colleague who had accused him of sexual assault on her in a hotel lift. The article was written after I had attended a lunch party where several people were holding animated discussions on his alleged sexual misconduct. The discussions revealed something else that troubled me more than the allegations themselves—namely the casual way in which some people spoke about a powerful man and his sense of entitlement where young women were concerned.
Thirteen years later, the case has come full circle with the Bombay High Court overturning Tejpal’s acquittal by the additional Sessions Court, Goa, in 2021. The Bombay High Court has convicted him of rape, sexual harassment and using criminal force against his young colleague, sentencing him to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment.
Reading the article I had written back in 2013, I find that the questions I had raised then have now acquired a different resonance. The circumstances have changed, the legal process has run its long course, and the court has now pronounced its judgement, but Tejpal still insists that he is going to appeal in the Supreme Court. He alleges his conviction is politically motivated.
However, the questions about power, entitlement, silence and consent remain. Here is the original article (with some updates) that was originally published in The Speaking Tree on 24 November 2013.
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I don’t want to sound moralistic or, worse still, a party pooper – but last weekend, I was at a fashionable party in the capital, where the conversation naturally turned to Tarun Tejpal and his alleged sexual escapades.
There was the usual outrage, the usual condemnation of how men can be so short-sighted so as to give up fame, family and fortune on just a whim. There was this one man, very much a man-about-town kind-of-man who lamented that the “bugger was silly – he got caught” implying that smart men can get their fair slice of (s)exciting action without being foolish enough to be rebuffed or caught.
There were still others who raised the question that the girl in question perhaps had had one drink too many. Well, even if she had, she didn’t ask to be groped or worse still, penetrated. And that’s that. Agreed there are also women who will do much to shin up the office ladder, but we are not discussing those ‘climbers here.
I won’t go so far as to say that the world is full of wolves, but they do lurk in unexpected corners. You will find them in the mall – at the shopkeeper who gives you the once-over even as he returns you your change; at the odd clinic where the duty doctor will prod your well-endowed mammary glands with his ‘dirty’ stethoscope; that older uncle – husband of that twice-removed cousin of your Dad’s who’s happy to run his lecherous hands up and down your back at family functions – and so on.
But these are amorous men you can easily fend off – and you needn’t cross their paths again and you take care to steer away from the so-called family leches. I don’t believe that families don’t have them – I have even seen brothers-in-law give proprietorial touches to unsuspecting sisters-in-law, at what, I feel, are all the prohibited places.
And then, there is the preying boss in the office. He’ll call you in his cabin and give you an important task to do, clearly implying that you are special – and you are oh so flattered at being singled out. Perhaps you are special at your work, you kid yourself, eager to excel at the task just meted out to you. Should you complain, but then you tell yourself, why should you, for nothing has really happened. Apart from that slight, inappropriate brush past you as he crossed you in the office corridor last evening. And so, you don’t complain and these power games get played out in innocuous office settings – day after day, week after week. You assume that these were in your imagination, so it would be silly to complain.
That same week in 2013, I had a long conversation with a cousin in the US. Family niceties over, we turned our attention to other things like work and offices. Eventually, we ended up discussing the Tejpal case – natural in a household where both husband and wife are journalists.
The cousin mentioned that such goings-on are a regular occurrence in the US as well. But when someone makes a noise, the backlash is harder and punishment for the crime is faster, unlike the somnolence of our judicial system, which eventually took 13 years to sentence Tejpal.
Ultimately, it’s a universal phenomenon. Powerful, men with the gift of the gab and the propensity to jab want arm candy by their side – and in their bed. And their ego won’t settle for a ‘no’. This is exactly what happened to Tarun Tejpal. His junior was clearly not interested, but his male ego wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. The judgement in this case will hopefully be a warning to ward off other predators in powerful positions.
Troubling questions remain: Have money, maya, illusion of power, wealth and fame blinded some men so much that a woman’s consent or lack of it means nothing? Is instant gratification the only criteria? Tejpal allegedly repeatedly told the court that there was so much evidence in his favour that he could be acquitted ten times over.
His total lack of accountability prompts us to ask another question: When will men treat women as their other equal half? Isn’t that the way God meant the sexes to be?
It just sounds like a set of rather old-fashioned questions. But it may be worth asking so that the Tejpals of the world know that the Divine Mother is watching 24×7 to protect her children, and justice will likely come to the victims, sooner or later.
Just three days earlier, India watched another powerful man get away in a similar case. A New Delhi court acquitted politician and former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and co-accused Vinod Tomar of sexual harassment and stalking charges. The women who had accused the two men of such conduct were international and award-winning wrestlers of our country.
Was that judgement just in the eyes of the Divine Mother? Will these girls fight back? Let us hope that they gather courage from the Tarun Tejpal judgement to take further action.
Reena Singh has more than 44 years’ experience in senior editorial positions in The Times of India (TOI) and Genpact. She was Deputy Editor with TOI’s spiritual newspaper, The Speaking Tree, where she spent more than nine years. After retiring as a journalist, she keeps herself busy editing non-fiction books