The plea of MJ Akbar, the former union minister, challenging the acquittal of senior journalist Priya Ramani in the defamation case against her was again posted for a later date by the Delhi High Court, reported Bar and Bench.
The case will next be heard on August 11.
“There are far more important matters. This is a regular criminal appeal. There is no urgency in this matter,” said the court when senior advocate Geeta Luthra, Akbar’s representative, appeared in the court appealing an earlier date before August in the matter.
Akbar filed a defamation case against Ramani in 2018 after she accused him of sexual misconduct in 1993 when Akbar was the editor-in-chief of The Asian Age.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Ramani had written an article for Vogue on October 12, 2017. The article, titled To the Harvey Weinsteins of the World, was addressed to “Dear Male Boss”. At that time, the identity of the boss was kept anonymous.
In October 2018, Ramani named Akbar as the editor who had harassed her. She said that the incident occurred during an interview with Akbar at a hotel room in Mumbai in 1993. Ramani said that she had decided to name him publicly after a number of women came forward to accuse Akbar of sexual harassment.
Akbar soon resigned from the Union Council of Ministers and filed a criminal case of defamation against Ramani. Akbar has since been denying the charges, claiming that he doesn’t remember the incident and has alleged that Ramani’s allegations were “malicious and fabricated”.
Over the past two years, Ramani’s lawyer, senior advocate Rebecca John, had pointed out more than 15 women who accused Akbar of sexually assaulting them and who came out in the same year during the #MeToo movement.
Throughout the tenure of the trial, Ramani had pleaded “truth, good faith, public interest, and public good” as her defence.
Akbar had filed the defamation case against Ramani on the grounds that her accusation was the first one that harmed his “impeccable reputation”.
During the final hearing on February 17, the court accepted the possibility of Ramani’s defence based on several testimonies including her own, that Akbar was not a man of “stellar reputation”.
The court also observed that “a man of social status” can also be “a sexual harasser”.
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Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court had acquitted Ramani of all charges in the case.
After nearly a month of the judgement on March 24, Akbar moved the Delhi High Court to challenge Ramani’s acquittal in the case when the court adjourned the case till Wednesday.
On Wednesday Luthra pointed that Ramani was acquitted despite the trial judge acknowledging Ramani’s statements as “defamatory”. The court has asked for the entire trial court record of the case while adjourning the case till August 11.
When Luthra tried to argue that this was a special category matter, the court observed the trial court judgment as “completely perverse” and that “the judge has not decided matters that have been open after trial”.