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Trial court erroneously acquitted Priya Ramani in defamation case, MJ Akbar’s counsel tells Delhi HC
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to journalist Priya Ramani on a plea filed by former Union minister MJ Akbar challenging a trial court order acquitting her in a criminal defamation case, Live Law reported.
Ramani had accused Akbar of sexual harassment during the #MeToo movement in India in 2018, after which Akbar resigned from the Union Council of Ministers and filed a defamation case against the journalist.
On February 17, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Pandey, while acquitting Ramani, had observed that “even a man of social status can be a sexual harasser”. The judgement also noted that a woman cannot be punished for raising her voice against abuse on the pretext of criminal complaint of defamation as the right of reputation could not be protected at the cost of right to life and dignity.
“The woman has a right to put her grievance at any platform of her choice and even after decades,” the order stated.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Akbar’s counsel Geeta Luthra and Rajiv Nayar told Justice Mukta Gupta that the trial court erroneously acquitted Ramani, despite concluding that her tweets in the case were defamatory.
“So the minute such a finding is returned, nothing further has to be adjudicated,” Nayar claimed. “These observations pertaining to sexual harassment are unnecessary.”
Justice Gupta said that finding whether…