Sep 3 2026 | theoutcastcollective
On 6th Aug, 2026, the Bombay High Court’s Goa bench overturned a five- year old acquittal and convicted former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal of rape under aggravating circumstances (Section 376(2), IPC) and related offences arising from a 2013 incident involving a junior colleague at a work- sponsored event. The accused was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment and directed to pay a fine payable to the survivors. Beyond the individual result, the judgement is a pointed critique of how Indian courts and, by extension, internal workplace inquiries have historically evaluated the credibility of the women who report sexual harassment cases, rather than evaluating the case on its merits.
When the trial court went wrong
In 2021, the additional sessions judge had acquitted Tarun Tejpal on the ground that the prosecution failed to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, holding that the complainant’s testimony did not meet a “sterling quality” standard. The High Court found this reasoning legally unsound. It held that once a survivor gives a clear, consistent account establishing non-consent, that account is legally sufficient under the applicable statutory framework. The law does not require additional corroboration simply because the sessions judge found her comportment unconvincing.
The trial court had spent its energy scrutinising the complainant’s post-incident conduct, her demeanour in the witness box, and her personal history, rather than weighing the evidence on the actual allegation. The State, on appeal, argued that the cross-examination of the complainant had been so aggressive and so focused on her character that it appeared that the survivor herself, not the accused, was effectively on trial.
The “perfect victim myth”
The most consequential part of this case is the conception of what is called that “perfect victim” construct. There are certain unspoken cultural expectations that a genuine survivor will look and behave a certain way, like visibly shaken, permanently withdrawn, unable to function, immediately estranged from the accused. The Court described this as a myth, not a legal standard, and held that credibility must be assessed against the facts of the assault itself, not against how closely a woman’s behaviour matches afterwards.
Beyond “Fight or Flight”: What Internal Committees need to understand about trauma responses
Every POSH inquiry eventually runs into the same unspoken question, asked more often through raised eyebrows than through words: if this really happened, why didn’t she react differently? Why did she keep replying to his emails? Why did she attend the team dinner two days later? Why didn’t she scream, resist, or immediately report it? The question assumes there is a “normal” way to respond to harassment or assault, and that anything short of visible distress or immediate confrontation is evidence that nothing serious occurred. The body has multiple ways of survival.
Fight: This is the response most people imagine when they picture resisting, pushing back, raising a voice, physically confronting the aggressor. It is also the response an Internal Committee (IC) is most likely to accept without question, because it fits the cultural script. But fight is only one option the nervous system reaches for, and statistically not the most common one in situations involving a power imbalance.
Flight: Physically leaving, or trying to. In a workplace setting this can be subtle like finding a reason to step out of a meeting, avoiding a floor or a cabin, taking leave, or eventually resigning.
Freeze: A state of involuntary immobility where the body locks up, thinking slows, and the person is temporarily unable to speak, move, or object. This is not passivity or consent; it is a nervous-system shutdown that happens faster than conscious decision-making.
Fawn: Appeasing, placating, or maintaining a friendly, cooperative front toward the aggressor in order to reduce the chance of further harm. In a workplace, fawning can look exactly like professionalism: continuing to answer a superior’s emails politely, laughing at a joke to defuse tension, agreeing to another one-on-one meeting because refusing feels riskier than attending.
Indian courts have, over time, moved in this direction independently of the trauma-science literature. The Bombay High Court in this matter relied on State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh (1996) and State of Himachal Pradesh v. Asha Ram (2005) for the proposition that sexual offences are typically committed without witnesses, and that the standard of proof must account for that reality rather than demanding a level of corroboration nearly impossible for any survivor to produce. Other High Courts have separately recognised that delay in reporting, or continued outward normalcy, reflects the practical burden of stigma and consequence a survivor has to go through.
The Calcutta High Court, for instance, has taken judicial notice that families and survivors alike ordinarily wish to avoid the social stigma associated with an assault, and treated a delay in lodging a complaint as a natural, not suspicious, response.
What this means for ICs and employers
For organisations administering the POSH Act, three practical lessons follow directly from the judgment:
First, an IC cannot treat a complainant’s composed demeanour, continued professionalism, or delayed reporting as grounds to doubt her account. These are not red flags. They are, per the Court’s own reasoning, exactly what one would expect from a survivor managing a power-imbalanced workplace relationship while protecting her livelihood.
Second, cross-examination-style questioning inside an internal inquiry must be curbed. The POSH Act already requires ICs to conduct inquiries with sensitivity and to avoid re-traumatising the complainant
Third, “prior conduct” and personal history are not fair game. The Court’s non-consent finding rejected the implicit argument that a woman’s past sexual history, however framed, bears on whether she consented on a specific occasion. ICs evaluating credibility should apply the same discipline. Character attacks unrelated to the specific facts of the complaint are not evidence.
Conclusion
The larger lesson from the Tejpal judgment is not merely that a particular complainant’s credibility was wrongly assessed. It is that the idea of a “perfect victim” has no place in the adjudication of sexual harassment complaints. A survivor does not have to respond with fear, confrontation, immediate reporting, resignation, or visible distress for her allegation to deserve serious consideration. Workplace harassment takes place within relationships of power, hierarchy, professional dependence and economic consequence, and a survivor’s response must be understood within that context. A trauma-informed POSH framework therefore does not mean lowering the evidentiary standards of an inquiry or automatically believing one party over another. It means asking the right questions rather than judging the complainant through preconceived ideas about how a “genuine” survivor should behave. It requires ICs to distinguish between relevant evidence and character judgments, between legitimate questioning and re-traumatisation, and between assessing inconsistencies and manufacturing them from ordinary human responses to trauma.
Take the first step today. Schedule an exploratory consultation via WhatsApp at +91 8928021419 or email rutuja@theoutcastcollective.com with our POSH experts and start building a workplace where everyone belongs.