Nobody can present call details from 1993, says Ramani's advocate in defamation case filed by MJ Akbar
Dec 10, 2020
New Delhi [India], December 10 : In the defamation case filed by former union minister MJ Akbar, the advocate for journalist Priya Ramani told a Delhi court on Thursday that nobody can present call details from 1993 and even MTNL won't have it. She was replying to Akbar's submission that no call records were presented to support Ramani's claim that she had called her friend, Nilofer, on the night of the incident.
"In this country, nobody can produce call records from 1993. Even MTNL won't have it," said Senior Advocate Rebecca John, who was representing Ramani in the matter.
"This objection is neither here nor there," John said while raising question on Akbar's submission.
Advancing her final argument in the defamation case, Senior Advocate John, also claimed that Akbar was shying away from the incident of the hotel room as narrated by her client in her Vogue article as well as testimony.
Senior Advocate Rebecca John told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Pandey that the complainant side did not ask anything relating to room, floor, bedsheet colour on hotel incident.
"They didn't ask which room, which floor, what was the colour of the bedsheet. Akbar was in a different hotel or was not in Bombay. The court can determine that they are shying away," the Senior Advocate said.
She told the court that Nilofer sent a message to Ramani expressing her solidarity when Ramani spoke about the 1993 incident.
Stressing on Nilofer testimony as a defence witness and her WhatsApp message dated October 8, 2018, she said, "There is no doubt that Nilofer was not present in the hotel room. But, she was present, till Ramani entered the hotel. She was the person Ramani called that night and confided in her."
"Truth has been corroborated by Nilofer and the WhatsApp message.", John said.
She also attacked complainant for misleading the court about it and said even before her tweet dated October 8 2018, young journalists had come out against Akbar.
"Speaking the truth is not defamatory," John said, apprising the court that there was no redressal mechanism in 1993-94.
As the argument remained inconclusive today, the matter was adjourned for further hearing on December 14.
MJ Akbar, the former Minister of State for External Affairs, had filed a defamation case against the journalist Priya Ramani for accusing him of sexual misconduct. Ramani was the first woman to accuse Akbar of sexual harassment during the #MeToo campaign. The allegations levelled against him forced him to resign from the Union Cabinet on 17 October 2018.
