Tehelka founder Tarun Tejpal at Delhi airport
The Goa judge who will decide whether to grant bail to Tehelka founder Tarun Tejpal, accused of rape, seemed to reject arguments that the case against him is a political conspiracy, and that the delay in filing the complaint by a young woman reporter suggests it's inauthentic.
"I am concerned with the crime, not the political remarks that were made after. Did the young girl make the political remarks?" the judge asked Mr Tejpal's lawyers.
They sought bail for him by saying that "He is not running away, will face the trial."
Mr Tejpal flew to Goa from Delhi this afternoon, where the police say it will arrest and then interrogate him. "I got the summons yesterday. So I am going to Goa," Mr Tejpal said at the Delhi airport in his first public appearance since the Goa Police filed its case against him last week.
This morning, teams from the Goa and Delhi police searched for him at his Delhi residence and at the homes of friends and relatives, but were not able to locate him.
The senior journalist, who stepped down as Tehelka's editor-in-chief last week, is accused of raping a younger reporter at an annual Tehelka conference in Goa earlier this month. (
Tehelka case: What Tejpal did to me is legally rape, she says in statement)
Mr Tejpal has denied the charges of rape against him, and said that the encounter was "light hearted bantering." He has also said that the BJP, which is in power in Goa, has engineered the case against him as retribution for Tehelka's exposes on the party's top leaders. The Congress has backed that suggestion; the BJP has said Mr Tejpal has close links to senior Congress leaders who are trying to protect him. (
Read: Only "light-hearted bantering" not sexual assault, says Tarun Tejpal)