Rebecca John, a lawyer for journalist Priya Ramani, concluded her arguments on Saturday at an online hearing on the criminal defamation lawsuit brought against her client by former Union Minister MJ Akbar.
Akbar brought the case under Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code in November 2018 after Ramani made an accusation of sexual misconduct against him on Twitter in October 2018 during the Me Too movement.
Ramani “exercised due care and attention” in his tweets that were “done in good faith” and “for the public good,” John said.
“Freedom of speech and expression as stipulated in article 19 of the Constitution of India is fundamental and intrinsic to a democratic society. Priya Ramani has been able to show the truth and the public good of his statements made in the public domain. She was a small part of a large national and global movement that discovered the pervasive nature of sexual harassment in the workplace. The Me Too movement revealed the prevalence and normalization of sexual harassment in the workplace with hundreds of thousands of women around the world participating in it, ”John told the court of Additional Metropolitan Magistrate Vishal Pahuja.
Ramani’s indictment concerned the time Akbar allegedly interviewed her in 1993 for the reporting position while he was the editor of the Asian Age newspaper. Akbar denied the accusation and said that the meeting, as Ramani described it, did not take place.
Refuting the accusation that Ramani’s tweets and an article he wrote about sexual harassment in the workplace were “defamatory per se” and damaged Akbar’s reputation, John said that it was not defamation if it was the true and it was said correctly. faith for the public good.
In February, Akbar’s lawyer, Geeta Luthra, had said during her closing arguments that Ramani’s statements against Akbar were “per se defamatory” and intended to damage her client’s reputation.
Citing other cases, Luthra had said: “It is sufficient to show that the accused has reason to believe that [what they said] it will damage the person’s reputation. ”
“I have looked at people who said they had [Akbar] in high esteem, and the respect they had for him was reduced in our eyes … In this case, no reasonable person can say that it was not defamatory, ”said Luthra.
John noted that Akbar’s attorneys had opened the door to the issue of Akbar’s reputation, placing him liable to contest his claim. “There was an avalanche of revelations against the whistleblower. [Ramani’s] he was one of them, ”John said.
Fourteen women made complaints of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior in the workplace. One of them, journalist Ghazala Wahab, witnessed Ramani.
Akbar, who was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs at the time the indictment was made, resigned shortly after they came to light. “There are some people who, when their reputation is damaged, destroys their entire existence. It destroys them, ”Luthra said during his closing remarks.
“My case has always been that before I met him I admired him as a journalist and as a writer. But her conduct with me that night in December 1993, and the experiences of other women, do not justify this complaint, ”John said on behalf of his client, Saturday.
John quoted the late United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who in a 2015 interview spoke of the “arbitrary barriers put in the way of women,” which is “the experience of all who grow up as women. ”.
“The Me Too movement and the challenge to sexual harassment in the workplace was an attempt to correct the historical error and an attempt to remove the arbitrary barriers that have been put in the way of women,” said John.
Luthra will respond to John’s closing arguments on October 13-15.
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