Tarun Tejpal surrenders at Mapusa and is taken to Colvale jail

Tarun Tejpal walked into the Additional Sessions Court at Mapusa on Monday and was taken to Central Jail, Colvale, to start a 10-year rigorous imprisonment term. The former editor-in-chief of Tehelka is 62. Outside the court he told reporters he was in the Supreme Court and sure that justice would come. In a second remark he said he would approach the Supreme Court again and was confident of justice there.

The Supreme Court on 25 August, in a bench led by Justice Alok Aradhe, dismissed his plea for exemption from surrender. It directed him to surrender within three weeks and to file a surrender certificate. If the certificate reaches the registry by 21 September, the criminal appeal against his conviction is listed for 22 September before the regular court. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal had asked the court to let him remain free because of the age of the case and time already spent in custody. The court refused.

The Bombay High Court at Goa, Justices Neela Gokhale and Amit Jamsandekar, convicted Tejpal on 6 August under Sections 376(2)(f), 354A and 354B of the Indian Penal Code: rape by a person in a position of trust or authority, sexual harassment, and assault or criminal force with intent to disrobe. The sentence was 10 years. The High Court set aside a May 2021 trial-court acquittal. The Goa government has also gone to the Supreme Court seeking life imprisonment.

The complainant, a junior colleague, accused Tejpal of sexually assaulting her in a hotel lift in Goa on 7 and 8 November 2013 during a Tehelka event. He was arrested on 30 November 2013. The 2021 sessions judgment said the complainant did not demonstrate any kind of normative behaviour a victim might plausibly show. That reasoning did not survive the High Court.

Monday's surrender is a procedural act, not the end of the case. The Supreme Court has not heard the appeal on merits. It has only insisted that a convicted man serve the sentence while he waits for that hearing. The certificate is the ticket to 22 September. Without it, the appeal stays off the board.

Tejpal built Tehelka as an investigative magazine that broke defence and political stories in the 2000s. The 2013 case collapsed that public standing and split the newsroom. The legal file then moved through an acquittal, a state appeal, a High Court conviction and now a Supreme Court queue. Each stage reused the same two nights in a Goa hotel and the same dispute about consent, power and how a court reads a complainant's later conduct.

Colvale is a central prison in North Goa. Tejpal will be held there unless the Supreme Court later suspends the sentence. The High Court had first given him time to surrender. He used that window to go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court used its window to send him back to Mapusa. The calendar from here is short: certificate by 21 September, listing on 22 September, then whatever the regular bench decides about bail pending appeal.

The complainant's name is withheld by law. The state's request for a life term means that even if the conviction stands, the term itself is still being fought upward. Tejpal's lawyers will argue that the High Court misread the trial record. The state will argue that 10 years is too light for the sections proved. Monday does not resolve either claim. It puts the convicted editor inside the jail the High Court named, which is the condition the Supreme Court set before it will talk about the rest.