A trial by social media is unacceptable in a rustic which follows rule of legislation, former Union minister M J Akbar — who has filed a legal defamation case in opposition to journalist Priya Ramani over allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment — instructed a Delhi court docket by way of his legal professionals on Saturday.
Akbar has sued Ramani over allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment. With a number of different girls making related allegations in opposition to him, Akbar resigned as Minister of State for External Affairs in October 2018.
The submissions have been made by senior advocate Geeta Luthra on behalf of Akbar earlier than Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Pandey. Her rebuttal couldn’t be accomplished and might be heard once more on January 27.
Luthra started by telling the court docket {that a} journalist doesn’t have particular privileges. “Press council says you have to be responsible. There are judgments that say you cannot have a parallel trial. Here there is just a trial…by a person on social media. It is unacceptable in a country ruled by rule of law. Fair comment does not extend to defamatory comments,” Luthra instructed the court docket.
On Ramani’s witnesses, Luthra instructed the court docket that Niloufer Venkatraman was an witness and Ghazala Wahab gave a model of a narrative which was “unconnected to the present case”.
While discussing Niloufer’s testimony, Luthra instructed the court docket the sexual harassment incident was mentioned to be from November-December 1993, and Nilofer mentioned it was December 1993. “There is improvement. Both people have photographic memory but don’t remember the day,” Luthra instructed the court docket.
