After years of delay, former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal will finally face trial from February in an alleged rape case involving a now former junior colleague, a Goa court said on Tuesday.
Additional District and Sessions judge Vijaya Pol ruled that the in-camera trial will commence on February 26 and hearings will continue for four days on the trot during which the victim will depose and will be examined.
"If a further date is required then the court will consider. We are quite confident that there is no case," Tejpal's advocate Pramod Dubey told reporters outside the Court complex in Mapusa, located 10 km from Panaji.
"We are saying from the inception that there is no case and the entire case is based on falsification and fabrication of documents, concoction of the story."
In 2013, when he was editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine, Tejpal was accused of rape by a female colleague, who in her complaint to the police alleged that she was raped by the journalist in the elevator of a five-star resort in Goa where the magazine was hosting an international conclave.
Following the registration of FIR, Tejpal was arrested and remained in police and judicial custody for nearly a year, before being released on bail. Tejpal subsequently resigned as the magazine's head.
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