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10 lawyers appear for MJ Akbar as hearing in defamation case against Ramani starts

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M.J. Akbar, accused of sexual harassment by 20 women journalists, resigned as MoS external affairs Wednesday.

New Delhi: A Delhi court Thursday took cognisance of the criminal defamation case filed by former Union minister M.J. Akbar against journalist Priya Ramani.

Akbar will be the first to record his statement in the next hearing of the case, scheduled for 31 October, at Delhi’s Patiala House Court.

In court no. 16, at least 10 lawyers were present on Akbar’s behalf to argue that Ramani had “severely tarnished the reputation and goodwill of their client” through her articles and tweets that were “defamatory in nature”.

Akbar, who is facing allegations of sexual harassment and assault by at least 20 women, resigned from his post as minister of state for external affairs Wednesday.


Also read: MJ Akbar: The brilliant editor who’s now seen as India’s most high-profile sexual predator


He had filed the case against Ramani, one of the first women to speak out against him, Monday seeking prosecution under Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC for defamation.

Neither Akbar nor Ramani were present in court Thursday.

In his official resignation letter, Akbar said the accusations against him are false, and he deems fit to fight them in his personal capacity.

“Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levied against me, also in a personal capacity,” he wrote.

High-profile legal team

At the helm of his high-profile legal team is advocate Geeta Luthra, who was also the lead defence lawyer of Tarun Tejpal in his sexual harassment case.

Sandeep Kapur, partner at the legal firm Karanjawala and Co, was also representing Akbar in court.

Arguing in front of additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal, Luthra said that to establish a case for defamation, “you need to know that only one man or one woman has read the statements (made by Ramani), but in this case her tweets were liked over 1,200 times”.

To establish Akbar’s public reputation, Luthra then listed his credentials before court, including his tenure as parliamentarian to his experience as a journalist and editor in various publications, and most recently as the junior minister for external affairs.


Also read: 6 foreign trips MJ Akbar will no longer make, govt scrambles to find replacement


Through the preliminary hearing, which lasted less than 20 minutes, Luthra refused to get into the specifics of the comments made by Ramani in her articles and tweets.

“I don’t want to get into the details because on the face of it you (the judge) can see that they are defamatory,” she said.

Luthra said that to mention the specifics of the comments might hurt the sentiments of those present.

“It’s been years and years after what she claimed is the event, some 20 or even 30 years,” Luthra added.

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1 COMMENT

  1. The Chinese have a saying : Take a cow to court and return home with a cat. The costs of litigation are forbidding. The Clintons were practically broke when they left the White House in 2000, with a sheaf of unpaid lawyers’ bills. Mr Akbar, as a working journalist and author, could not have been truly wealthy. More than the ladies, who will receive pro bono legal assistance, he will be drained by the time this is all over. He would not survive a simple polygraph test.

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