Journalist Priya Ramani was delighted after a Delhi trial court, on Wednesday, 17 February, acquitted her in the criminal defamation case brought against her by former Union Minister MJ Akbar, over the #MeToo sexual harassment allegations levelled by her.
While the court held that the contents of an article by Ramani in Vogue in 2017 was ‘per se defamatory’, it held that the defences raised by her, of truth and public interest, were justified in light of systematic abuse of women at the workplace.
In an important judgment for sexual harassment cases going forward, Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey noted that “Women can’t be punished for raising instances of sexual abuse by complaints claiming defamation.”
Ramani was delighted after the verdict, telling The Quint:
Ramani is optimistic that this victory encourages more women to speak up and “discourages powerful men to take victims of sexual harassment to court with fake cases of defamation.”
Noting that she had a strong support…