The Delhi High Court on Friday allowed former Union Minister M.J. Akbar’s plea seeking an early hearing of his appeal challenging a trial court order acquitting journalist Priya Ramani in a criminal defamation case filed by him over her allegations of sexual harassment. The High Court has listed the appeal for hearing on April 26.
In his application, Mr. Akbar said that he was a senior citizen and a senior journalist. He noted that two years have passed since the filing of his appeal and urged the court for an early hearing. On January 13, 2022, the High Court agreed to examine Mr. Akbar’s appeal against the trial court order and admitted the appeal. It has also issued a notice to Ms. Ramani in the case.
Ms. Ramani’s counsel said that the only grounds mentioned in the application for an expeditious hearing of the appeal is that Mr. Akbar is still aggrieved by the alleged defamation caused in 2018 for which Ms. Ramani has already faced trial and has been acquitted by the trial court.
‘Defamation, not sexual harassment’
In his appeal, Mr. Akbar has contended that the trial court decided his criminal defamation case on the basis of surmises and conjecture, and as though it was a case of sexual harassment.
“The trial court has erred in considering the instant case as a complaint for sexual harassment when it was, in fact, a complaint for defamation.... The trial court ought to have considered the evidence presented by the respondent [Ms. Ramani] herein from the perspective of a defamation case as the respondent has presented no admissible corroboratory evidence, other than her own testimony,” Mr. Akbar’s appeal said.
The former Minister has also claimed that the trial court “gravely erred” in observing that he did not have a stellar reputation and ignored well-established principles of criminal jurisprudence.
‘Spoke out in public interest’
Mr. Akbar has challenged the trial court’s February 17, 2021 order that acquitted Ms Ramani in the case on the ground that “a woman has the right to put her grievance at any platform of her choice and even after decades”.
The trial court accepted Ms. Ramani’s argument that she spoke out against Mr. Akbar two decades after the incident took place “in public interest and for the public good”. It also accepted Ms. Ramani’s contention that Mr. Akbar “is not a man of stellar reputation”, on the basis of her testimony and the testimony of senior journalist Ghazala Wahab, who also claimed that she had been sexually harassed by Mr. Akbar.
#MeToo movement
The court also acknowledged that the #MeToo movement had provided a platform for women who had been sexually harassed to break their silence, and that Ms. Ramani was one such woman.
At the height of the #MeToo movement in 2018, Ms. Ramani had accused Mr. Akbar of sexual harassment, after which about a dozen former colleagues of Mr. Akbar also came out with different allegations against him.
Days before he resigned from his post as Minister of State for External Affairs in October 2018, Mr. Akbar filed a criminal defamation case against Ms. Ramani, citing her open letter published in a magazine and her tweets naming him.
