Former Union minister MJ Akbar’s lawyer on Thursday told a court in Delhi that it was journalist Priya Ramani who targeted him by accusing...
Former Union minister MJ Akbar’s lawyer on Thursday told a court in Delhi that it was journalist Priya Ramani who targeted him by accusing him of sexual harassment, Bar and Bench reported. The lawyer claimed Akbar had an “unblemished” reputation before Ramani made the allegations against him.
Ramani had accused Akbar of sexual harassment in 2018, when the #MeToo movement began in India. After this, Akbar resigned from the Union Council of Ministers and filed a criminal defamation case against Ramani.
Akbar’s lawyer Geeta Luthra, who made submissions on his behalf before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Pandey, said that it was Ramani who started the entire controversy. “False, defamatory statement by her lead to repeat by other persons and media,” Luthra said in the submissions. “She started this. That’s why immediately after my coming back, I [Akbar] made the complaint against her.”
Luthra also countered Ramani’s argument that she spoke out against Akbar years later because there was a “vacuum in law” at the time of the incident. “Women have tried due process and lost hope,” Ramani had said.
“Due process was available to women,” Akbar’s lawyer said. “When Priya [Ramani] says there was no availability of due process, it is incorrect.” Luthra went...
