A Delhi court is likely to rule on the criminal defamation case brought against journalist Priya Ramani by former trade union minister MJ Akbar.
The editor-turned-politician had filed the lawsuit against Ramani on October 15, 2018, for allegedly defaming him by accusing him of sexual misconduct decades ago when he was a journalist. With several other women making similar accusations against her, Akbar resigned as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in 2018.
On February 1, the additional chief metropolitan magistrate Ravindra Kumar had reserved the trial after both Akbar and Ramani completed their arguments. The court had earlier deferred issuing the verdict on February 10.
Ramani, the first woman to accuse MJ Akbar of sexual harassment during the #MeToo campaign, in a 2017 article and a 2018 tweet, had denounced that the former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs had sexually harassed her during a job interview in 1994..
More than 20 women accused Akbar of sexual harassment during their time as journalists with him. However, he has called the allegations “false, fabricated and deeply distressing” while emphasizing that he was taking appropriate legal action against them.
Akbar, last month, had told a Delhi court through his lawyers that Ramani destroyed the evidence “willfully, intentionally and maliciously” by deleting the Twitter account.
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She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.