Former Tehelka managing editor Shoma Chaudhury and three other witnesses have been summoned by the Goa police to record their statement before a magistrate in the case of alleged sexual assault against the magazine's editor Tarun Tejpal.
"We have sought permission from the court to summon Chaudhury and three other witnesses and register their statement before the magistrate," a senior crime branch official said on Wednesday.
The investigating agency had already recorded a statement of Chaudhury during the initial stage of investigation in the case by meeting her at the Tehelka office in New Delhi, before she quit.
Officials said that the statement of Chaudhury is very crucial for the case as she was the first person to have known about the alleged sexual assault.
The official said that all the four would be called after the court gives the date to record the statement.
Tejpal was arrested on November 30 by the crime branch after his anticipatory bail petition was rejected by a sessions court. On December 1, he was remanded in six-day police custody by a court in Panaji.
A woman journalist, who was employed with Tehelka, had accused Tejpal of sexually assaulting her twice on November 7 and 8 in a lift in a five-star hotel in Goa. He has been booked under Sections 354A (outraging the modesty of a woman) and 376 (2)(K) (custodial rape) of the Indian Penal Code.
The woman journalist had mentioned in her statement that she had interacted with three of her colleagues soon after the alleged assault at a Goa hotel.
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