From Reel to Real: Tarun Tejpal’s courtroom battle echoes 1993 blockbuster ‘Damini’

The Bombay High Court has convicted former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal of raping a junior colleague in 2013, overturning his 2021 acquittal. The Goa bench sentenced him to 10 years, sharply criticising the trial court for shifting the burden of proof onto the survivor.

Panaji: At the emotional core of the 1993 blockbuster “Damini”, centred around a rape trial and remembered for Sunny Deol’s thundering “tarikh pe tarikh” monologue, is the scene where the survivor’s dignity is shredded – systematically and very publicly.

Thirty-three years later, the reel has slipped uneasily into the real. On Thursday, as the Bombay High Court overturned a trial court’s acquittal and convicted former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal of raping a junior colleague, the scene rushed back into memory.

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The judgment by the Goa bench called out the trial court’s silence when the defence counsel shifted the burden of proof on the survivor with discomfiting personal and graphic details to chip away at her confidence.

The similarities were striking. Almost as if the Sunny Deol-Meenakshi Seshadri film about a powerful man and a vulnerable woman had come to life.

Terming the trial court’s judgment of 2021 “perverse”, Justices Neela Gokhale and Amit S Jamsandekar sentenced Tejpal to 10 years for sexually assaulting the young woman in 2013.

“A detailed review of PW-1’s (the survivor) cross-examination shows that the defence counsel repeatedly focused on her personally, as if she were on trial rather than the Respondent (Tejpal). Her private life was extensively examined, revealing her past relationships, social media posts prior to the incidents, and her public responses to trauma,” the judges said.

Nearly half the 1,000-page cross examination consisted of repetitive questions about specific details, such as her position during various acts with the respondent, the court went on to say.

“The incident took place in 2013, and evidence was recorded from 2018 to 2021. Five years later, PW-1 was persistently asked to recount details of the rape, not to clarify facts or test her credibility, but to find inconsistencies and distort her account,” it said.

Her character was dissected under a harsh, judgmental spotlight, effectively putting her on trial instead of Tejpal.

This relentless ordeal mirrors the final act of “Damini”, where the opposing defence lawyer relentlessly attacks Damini’s credibility and character, reducing her to a mental wreck, to protect the powerful.

Just as in the film, where the courtroom is transformed into an arena of public shame in an effort to wear her down into complete submission.