Journalist Priya Ramani, while countering a defamation case filed by former Union Minister M.J. Akbar for her tweets accusing him of sexual harassment during his role as a newspaper editor, told a Delhi court that it’s not easy for any woman to make such disclosures.
Ms. Ramani said that the defamation case initiated against her “has come at a great personal cost” and that she has “nothing to gain from it”.
“In all my disclosures, I spoke the truth in public interest and public good. It was my hope that the disclosures in the ‘MeToo’ movement would empower women to speak up and to better understand their rights at workplace,” Ms. Ramani said.
“By keeping silent, I could have avoided the subsequent targeting but that would not have been the right thing to do,” she told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal.
“I spoke the truth when I disclosed my experience of my first job interview in Vogue Magazine and in my tweet dated October 8, 2018. It is important and necessary for women to speak up about sexual harassment at workplaces. Many of us have been brought up to believe that silence is a virtue,” she said.
During the day’s hearing, Ms. Ramani was asked a battery of questions by senior advocate Geeta Luthra, representing Mr. Akbar, as part of the cross examination process.
“It is wrong to suggest that I had made these allegations against Mr. Akbar maliciously, deliberately, in bad faith to malign him,” Ms. Ramani said in response to a question put up by Ms. Luthra where she said Ms. Ramani made these allegations against Mr. Akbar for the first time only in 2018.
The court has posted the case for further hearing on October 24.
At the height of the ‘MeToo’ movement last year, Ms. Ramani had accused Mr. Akbar of sexual harassment during his role as the editor of The Asian Age. Following Ms. Ramani’s accusation, about dozen former colleagues of Mr. Akbar also came out with different allegations against him.
Days before he resigned from his post of Minister of State for External Affairs in October last year, Mr. Akbar filed a criminal defamation case against Ms. Ramani citing her open letter published in a magazine and her tweets naming him.