Written by: Editorial3 min readAug 6, 2026 08:58 PM IST First published on: Aug 6, 2026 at 08:52 PM ISTEver since the allegations of sexual assault against Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal by a woman colleague became public in November 2013, the case became consequential for what it said about the relationship between power and accountability. The allegations came barely a year after the horrific December 2012 Delhi gang rape had ignited a nationwide reckoning over women’s safety and gender justice. The Bombay High Court judgment convicting Tejpal and sentencing him to 10 years of imprisonment, is significant, therefore, for what it says about the slow, difficult fight for justice and accountability.In 2021, seven years after the Justice JS Verma committee report acknowledged the layered realities of sexual violence and called for a more dignity-centric approach, and a year after Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s conviction in New York on charges of rape and sexual assault came as a turning point in the global MeToo movement, a sessions court in Goa had acquitted Tejpal. In the 527-page judgment, a considerable portion was devoted to the conduct of the survivor — that she “did not look disturbed, reserved, terrified or traumatised in any way even though this was immediately after she claims to have been sexually assaulted”, that she was smiling in photographs, that she did not fit into the quintessential mould of the “victim”. It showed yet again, that the demand for accountability can be a sharp scimitar that turns on the aggrieved, diminishing and disbelieving, jabbing repeatedly at wounds, asking them if they misread intentions, if a consensual relationship had soured into bitterness afterwards, if the “no” had, in fact, meant “yes”. It showed that this is a battle only the most resilient can take on.AdvertisementIn the near-decade since MeToo snowballed into a global movement and survivors of sexual abuse at the workplace came forward to indict their violators — powerful men in high offices, with money, institutional backing and ease of influence — the arc of gender justice in the country remains erratic. The expansiveness of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, has often been overtaken by narrow formalisms that reforms were meant to dismantle; powerful men continue to get away. Tejpal has said he will knock on the door of the Supreme Court. For now, The Bombay High Court’s verdict is a moment to reflect on the distance covered, and yet to be crossed, in an arduous journey.