Anushka Mansharamani
The case of Priya Ramani v. MJ Akbar is a criminal defamation case filed against the journalist, MJ Akbar by Priya Ramani accusing him of sexual harassment.
Senior Advocate Rebecca John, representing Priya Ramani in the previous hearings has contended that Akbar was shying away from the incident of the hotel room.
Senior Advocate Rebecca John continued with her arguments on 18th December and at first stated that during the tweets referred to MJ Akbar, 15 other women had come ahead alleging him of sexual harassment.
She contended that by singling out Priya Ramani, MJ Akbar is guilty of concealing material particulars.
She cited a judgement proving that a litigant must approach the court with clean hands and that it was MJ Akbar’s duty to disclose his previous records of being held guilty of contempt by the Delhi High Court.
Rebecca John then went on to address the objections raised on the evidence by the plaintiffs and stated that the question regarding his political career was to discover his character.
She further addressed the objections with regards to the Vogue Article and the meetings and stated that they were admissible under the Indian Evidence Act.
As all her certificates under Section 65B were objected to, she cited the latest judgement by Justice Nariman to prove that she fulfilled all the conditions laid down for Section 65B to be used as evidence.
Rebecca John further goes on to present the directions on saving the Call Detail Records (CDR) for one year as stated in the judgement cited.
Pointing out that the court should consider the order passed for Ramani and Nilofer to produce CDRs from 1993.
Rebecca John then states Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, which mentions the 3 ingredients of defamation and disregards intention to harm and reputation of such order.
She stated that an exception is “it is not defamation to impute something that is true, made in public good.”
She cited the judgement delivered by the Delhi High Court on 17th December to establish that the matter is of great public interest and that the tweet was based on the information in the public domain.
Rebecca John then stated that Ramani and Ghazala had come forward because of the MeToo movement and Ramani only hoped to spread awareness.
She further states that the articles and tweets were not malafide and that Ghazala Wahab and Priya Ramani were not friends and that Ghazala Wahab testified at her own will.
She went on to disapprove of all the ingredients of reputation and again brings up the singling out of Ramani.
She stated that “The objections raised against my evidence are without any basis” and that no case of defamation is made against Priya Ramani, and she should be acquitted due to the same.
Concluding her arguments, she requested an opportunity to file a written submission after Advocate Sandeep Kapur, representing MJ Akbar, was done with his contentions.
The matter is listed to be further heard on 22nd December.