Tejpal to Brij Bhushan, no ‘perfect victim’: How courts judge survivor’s conduct after sexual assault

Courts may examine a survivor’s actions and the timing of a complaint, but the law does not prescribe how a victim must behave after an alleged assault. ThePrint examines various judgements.

Illustration: Soham Sen | ThePrint

New Delhi: The law does not prescribe how a sexual assault or harassment survivor must behave—or how quickly she must report an alleged offence—for her account to be considered credible. Yet, courts have often considered delay, continued contact with the accused and other post-incident actions while assessing evidence.

From the Supreme Court’s landmark Gurmit Singh ruling to the contrasting judgements in the Tarun Tejpal and Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh cases, jurisprudence raises a central question: When is post-incident conduct relevant, and when does it amount to judging a survivor against the myth of a “perfect victim”?

Indian courts have repeatedly grappled with these questions. The law on this, however, does not support either of the easy propositions often heard outside the courtroom—that a “genuine survivor” will complain immediately and that everything a complainant does after an alleged assault is legally irrelevant.

Post-incident conduct can be evidence in certain circumstances. But there is no universally prescribed “correct” way for a survivor to behave after an assault.

The ‘perfect victim’

The Tarun Tejpal case brought this question into sharp focus.

Tejpal, then editor-in-chief of Tehelka, was accused of sexually assaulting a junior colleague in a hotel elevator in Goa in November 2013. A trial court acquitted him in 2021 after extensively examining the complainant’s conduct, his apology emails sent to her and her behaviour surrounding and following the alleged incident.

The Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court, this month, described these aspects of the trial court’s approach as deeply problematic.

Sentencing him to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment, the court criticised the trial court’s approach to the idea of an “ideal” or “perfect” victim and reassessed the evidence, including the apology emails and CCTV material.

“(In) expecting a survivor to be constantly miserable, meek or visibly broken, the trial court has ignored the reality of human coping mechanisms,” the judgment notes. “However, these concepts of a perfect victim are a myth. Credibility must be evaluated on facts, not on whether a survivor fits a narrow cultural mould.”

The case involving Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh presents a contrasting set of circumstances.

Women wrestlers alleged sexual harassment against Singh, with some allegations relating to incidents several years before the police complaint was registered in 2023. Singh’s defence relied, among other things, on the delay and alleged inconsistencies in the complainants’ accounts.

In May 2024, a Delhi court nevertheless found sufficient material to frame charges of sexual harassment and other offences against Singh, meaning the delay had not, at that stage, provided a basis to terminate the prosecution.

In the acquittal verdict, the court made strong observations about the reliability of the allegations, describing them as “rehearsed”, “well-practised” and “planted”.

“It is understandable as alleged that the accused being the then WFI president would have spoiled their careers if they had made complaint against him. However, it is not at all understandable as to why cordial relations were maintained with him for years. Victims did not complain, they gave justification for the same, but everyone who witnessed was either shocked, disturbed or felt sad for the victims. Nevertheless, none was courageous enough to proceed against him for the alleged acts? Since nobody made any formal complaint or retaliated to the alleged acts, it is highly improbable that the alleged acts are true,” the court said.

SC 1996 verdict in Punjab v Gurmit Singh

In a landmark verdict, the top court in 1996 specifically recognised that victims of sexual offence and their families may hesitate to approach the police fearing their reputation, overall stigma and trauma surrounding the incident.

Gurmit Singh was the main accused charged and convicted alongside others for sexual assault. A minor school girl was abducted, taken to a secluded spot, forced to drink alcohol, and gang-raped by the accused over the course of a night. The Supreme Court overturned a trial court’s acquittal of three men, saying it was insensitive and flawed.

“The courts cannot overlook the fact that in sexual offences, delay in the lodging of the FIR can be due to a variety of reasons, particularly the reluctance of the prosecutrix or her family members to go to the police and complain about the incident which concerns the reputation of the prosecutrix and the honour of her family. It is only after giving it a cool thought that a complaint of sexual offence is generally lodged,” the court had said.

Importantly, this judgement said that the courts must, while evaluating evidence, remain alive to the fact that in a case of rape, “no self-respecting woman would come forward in a court just to make a humiliating statement against her honour such as is involved in the commission of rape”.

“Inherent bashfulness of females and the tendency to conceal outrage of sexual aggression are factors which courts should not overlook. The testimony of the victim in such cases is vital and unless there are compelling reasons which necessitate looking for corroboration of her statement, courts should find no difficulty to act on the testimony of a victim of sexual assault alone to convict an accused where her testimony inspires confidence and is found to be reliable,” SC said.

In fact, the court categorically stated that seeking corroboration of her statement before relying upon the same, as a rule, in such cases amounts to adding “insult to injury”.

“Why should the evidence of a girl or a woman who complains of rape or sexual molestation, be viewed with doubt, disbelief or suspicion? The court, while appreciating the evidence of a prosecutrix, may look for some assurance of her statement to satisfy its judicial conscience, since she is a witness who is interested in the outcome of the charge levelled by her, but there is no requirement of law to insist upon corroboration of her statement to base conviction of an accused,” the judgement said.

‘Avoid trivialising offence’

In Aparna Bhat v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2021), the Supreme Court of India set aside a controversial Madhya Pradesh High Court order that required a sexual assault accused to have the survivor tie a Rakhi as a bail condition.

The top court ruled that the use of reasoning/language that minimises the offence and seeks to trivialise the survivor must be avoided in all circumstances.

It laid out a list of conduct, actions, or situations that are to be deemed irrelevant, e.g., to say that the survivor had previously consented to such or similar acts, or that she behaved promiscuously, or by her actions or clothing provoked the alleged action of the accused, that she behaved in a manner unbecoming of chaste or “Indian” women, etc.

The court also said these incidents are merely examples of an attitude that should never be reflected in judicial verdicts or orders or deemed relevant when reaching a judicial determination; they cannot serve as justifications for providing bail or other similar relief.

The Supreme Court subsequently dealt with this question in State of Himachal Pradesh v Gian Chand, (2001) 6 SCC 71.The principle emerging from the case is that the court has to examine whether the delay has been satisfactorily explained. An unexplained delay may affect the prosecution case; but in sexual-offence cases, courts must also account for the particular social and psychological circumstances that may cause a victim or family to wait before approaching the police.

In Bharwada Bhoginbhai Hirjibhai v. State of Gujarat (1983), the Supreme Court of India ruled that a sexual assault survivor’s testimony can support a conviction without independent corroboration. The court stated that minor witness memory gaps do not invalidate credible testimony, and demanding mandatory corroboration treats survivors with unfair suspicion.

Criminal law practitioner Namit Saxena explained that while the timing of a complaint can be a relevant evidentiary circumstance, delay in reporting a sexual offence is not by itself fatal to the prosecution.

The defence, he said, is entitled to question why a complaint was lodged after a particular period and suggest that the delay points to an afterthought, vendetta or ulterior motive. But the court ultimately has to decide the case on the evidence actually placed before it. “A crime does not get washed away merely because there was a delay in lodging the FIR or complaint,” said advocate Saxena.

On post-incident conduct of the complainant, Saxena drew a distinction between conduct that is actually brought on record and simply being judged by what the complainant did after the alleged offence.

If, for instance, a complainant remained in contact with the accused after reporting an alleged rape, that fact could be put to her in cross-examination and her explanation would become part of the evidence, he said. If she explained that the accused was her employer and that she continued the relationship because she feared losing her livelihood, that explanation too would be relevant and could potentially support the prosecution’s case by demonstrating the accused’s position of power.

But, simply continuing with one’s life after reporting an offence cannot, by itself, be treated as a ground to disbelieve a complainant, Saxena said. “You can’t watch inside what she is going through,” he said, arguing that such conduct cannot by itself become a basis for acquitting an accused.

Dates and sequence of events

Saxena also stressed that dates and the sequence of events have to be examined in context. For example, if an incident is followed by a complaint while the complainant remains in employment for some time and she subsequently resigns, the entire sequence—including why she stayed and when she left—may be relevant if it is brought out in evidence.

Conversely, an immediate resignation after reporting an alleged incident could also be a relevant circumstance. The significance lies in the evidence and the explanation offered, rather than in applying a fixed behavioural rule to every complainant.

He further emphasised that material relied upon by a court has to form part of the evidentiary record. Social-media posts, communications or other material cannot simply be relied upon “across the board”; they have to be properly brought into evidence and the opposing side must have an opportunity to address and challenge them in cross-examination.

Workplace sexual-harassment cases

There is another layer which is often missed in discussions about delayed sexual-harassment complaint under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013: POSH proceedings have a statutory limitation period.

The Supreme Court addressed this directly in the Kolkata’s West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) VC Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti case decided in September 2025.

Noting that the sexual harassment complaint filed against the VC of the university by a faculty member was “time-barred” as it was made after the statutory threshold of 6 months, the top court declined to continue proceedings against him. The top court upheld the Calcutta High Court’s decision of the complaint being “time-barred”.

A bench of justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B. Varale had noted that it “may have been a wrong” on the part of the V-C, but due to the statutory bar, the complaint could not legally be sustained. But also, “it shouldn’t be forgotten”. Thus, the bench asked the VC to place the judgment copy in his resume. However, months later in November, the bench officially withdrew and deleted the resume-inclusion directive from the judgment.

(Edited by Viny Mishra)