New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal’s application seeking exemption from surrender by the first week of September, as ordered by the Bombay High Court after convicting him of raping a junior colleague in 2013.
On 6 August, the Goa bench of the Bombay HC overturned the 2021 trial court order, and sentenced Tejpal to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment, and granted him four weeks to surrender.
Tejpal has filed a plea challenging his conviction, apart from the application seeking exemption from surrender. Both the applications were listed for hearing on 31 August. The appeal against the HC’s surrender order will now be heard Tuesday.
During an in-chamber proceeding Monday, Tejpal’s counsel, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, requested the bench of justice Alok Aradhe to list Tejpal’s application seeking surrender exemption for hearing before 31 August.
In-Chamber proceedings are where cases are taken up for preliminary or procedural directions and then placed before a regular bench for hearing.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing Goa government, opposed his prayer to advance the hearing, and quoted Supreme Court Rules 2013 to assert that it was mandatory for an appellant to surrender to enable hearing of his/her appeal against conviction before the top court.
He, however, added that the court has the power to do away with the requirement of surrender.
The SC Rule
Mehta argued that Tejpal’s appeal against conviction remains statutorily ineligible for listing until the appellant has surrendered or secured an explicit exemption. This was in terms of Order XX Rule 3 of the Supreme Court rules. He referred to a Supreme Court judgement, reiterating the rule.
Notably, the Solicitor General conceded that while the rule is mandatory, the court retains the inherent power to obviate the requirement of surrender. However, he maintained that until such power is formally exercised on the merits, the procedural bar remains absolute, preventing the court from even glancing at the appeal against conviction.
Justice Alok Aradhe declined to bypass established discipline, upholding the mandatory nature of the surrender rule, and agreed to hear the application on the surrender before the plea against conviction.
The court’s rationale was anchored in precedents. The provision had previously been adjudicated as mandatory by a two-judge bench of SC.
After the in-chamber proceeding, the top court said that until and unless Tejpal’s application seeking exemption from surrendering is decided, his appeal against the conviction cannot be listed before the Supreme Court.
Consequently, it observed that since Sibal has not addressed the court on the merits of Tejpal’s application related to surrender, it ordered its listing Tuesday to afford an opportunity to the senior counsel to argue the issue.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also read: Jail, bail, acquittal, conviction: Timeline of rape, sexual assault case against Tarun Tejpal