A Delhi court on Thursday sent back former Union Minister M.J. Akbar’s defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani for her tweets accusing him of sexual harassment to the judge who was hearing it for the past two years.
Judge Vishal Pahuja, who was trying the defamation case, had earlier this month sent the matter to the Principal District and Sessions Judge seeking its transfer to another court on the ground that his court was now designated to hear cases filed against lawmakers pursuant to a recent verdict of the Supreme Court.
On September 16, the apex court had asked the Chief Justices of all High Courts to list before an appropriate Bench all pending criminal cases involving sitting and former lawmakers where stay was granted.
In terms of this order, certain cases that did not pertain to sitting and former lawmakers, but were already being heard by Mr. Pahuja were transferred to other courts. Principal District and Sessions Judge Kohli on Thursday, however, sent the case back to the court of Judge Pahuja.
At the height of the ‘MeToo movement’ in 2018, Ms. Ramani accused Mr. Akbar of sexual harassment during his role as newspaper editor. Following this, about dozen of 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 2018, Mr. Akbar filed a criminal defamation case against Ms. Ramani.
