Following a trial which lasted almost two years and became one of India’s most high-profile cases arising out of the #MeToo movement, a Delhi trial court on Wednesday, 17 February acquitted journalist Priya Ramani in the criminal defamation case filed against her by former Union Minister MJ Akbar.
In the criminal defamation suit, Akbar had claimed that an article by Ramani, written for Vogue in 2017 amid the #MeToo movement, and a subsequent tweet about him in 2018 when the movement was sweeping India, caused damage to his “stellar reputation”.
Ramani had contested these claims pleading truth, good faith, public interest and public good as her defences in the defamation trial – and as the court pronounced its verdict on 17 February, it observed that these defences raised by her were justified in light of systemic abuse of women at the workplace.