NEW DELHI: A literary festival run by a top Indian newspaper group canceled Monday an invitation to a former leading editor of an investigative magazine charged with raping a colleague after a public outcry.

Tarun Tejpal, the founder and editor of Tehelka magazine, had been asked to attend the Times of India Literature Carnival as part of a panel titled “The Tyranny of Power.”

But the invitation was withdrawn after it triggered protests on social networking sites from people angry that one of the country’s biggest-selling newspaper organizations had invited Tejpal to participate in the festival in early December.

“We have asked Tarun Tejpal to drop out of the TOI (Times of India) Litfest. We’ve got a great program & we don’t want it hijacked by extraneous noise,” tweeted columnist and senior Times of India journalist Bachi Karkaria.

Tejpal was granted bail in July after spending months in jail on charges including sexual harassment and rape of a junior colleague during a magazine-sponsored event last year in the western holiday state of Goa.