{"id":3662,"date":"2018-10-16T10:30:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T10:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/?p=3662"},"modified":"2018-10-16T10:31:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T10:31:19","slug":"metoo-mj-akbar-hires-97-lawyers-against-1-journalist-to-fight-sexual-harassment-chargesindia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/metoo-mj-akbar-hires-97-lawyers-against-1-journalist-to-fight-sexual-harassment-chargesindia\/","title":{"rendered":"MeToo: MJ Akbar hires 97 lawyers against 1 journalist to fight sexual harassment chargesIndia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3663\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/MJ-Akbar-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/MJ-Akbar-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/MJ-Akbar.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Source-\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/india\/article\/political-direction-did-not-come-from-odisha-government-during-cyclone-titli-sitaram-yechury\/299795\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">timesnownews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>New Delhi:<\/strong>\u00a0Accused on charges of sexual harassment, journalist-turned-politician M J Akbar has employed a team of 97 lawyers to represent him to fight his case against journalist Priya Ramani, who is among 15 women journalists who have accused Akbar of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n<p>The skewed equation of the case clearly shows the might of Akbar, who is the Union minister of state for external affairs, and gives a lucid picture of how the plight of scores of journalists who have accused him of sexual misconduct could be smothered on the pretext of law.\u00a0What tilts the case in his favour is the fact that none of the female journalists have filed an FIR against him.<\/p>\n<p>Akbar, earlier today, filed a criminal defamation case in Delhi\u2019s Patiala House Court against Ramani, through his advocates Karanjawala &amp; Co., news agency\u00a0<em>ANI<\/em>\u00a0reported. In a detailed 41-page complaint, Akbar attached the stories published by Ramani, about her account and her comments on social media, and filed a defamation case under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code.<\/p>\n<p>In his complaint, Akbar cited that Ramani \u2018willfully, deliberately, intentionally and maliciously\u2019 defamed him with her \u2018wholly and completely false, frivolous, unjustifiable and scandalous grounds&#8217; and harmed his &#8216;goodwill and reputation&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>The plea also lists excerpts of her account published with various publications. \u201c\u2018I began this piece with my MJ Akbar story. Never named him because he didn\u2019t \u2018do\u2019 anything. Lots of women have worse stories about this predator \u2013maybe they\u2019ll share\u2019, \u2018the media\u2019s biggest sexual predator\u2019,\u201d the plea lists, adding that Ramani herself admitted that Akbar \u2018did not do anything\u2019 to her.<\/p>\n<p>Hours after Akbar filed the defamation case against Ramani, she hit back at the Union minister and said she was ready to fight the case \u201cas truth and absolute truth is my only defence\u201d. The female scribe further alleged that the minister was trying to \u201csilence through intimidation and harassment\u201d the women who have come out and spoken against him.<\/p>\n<p>Not just Priya Ramani, but around a dozen women journalists, who had worked with him in the past, have levelled allegations of sexual misconduct against Akbar. He has rubbished all the claims as \u201cfalse, wild and baseless\u201d, amid growing demands for his removal as the MoS.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/metoo-mj-akbar-hires-97-lawyers-against-1-journalist-to-fight-sexual-harassment-chargesindia\/\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"5\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground:  !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 100% !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source-\u00a0timesnownews.com New Delhi:\u00a0Accused on charges of sexual harassment, journalist-turned-politician M J Akbar has employed a team of 97 lawyers to represent him to fight his case against journalist Priya Ramani, who is among 15 women journalists who have accused Akbar of sexual harassment. The skewed equation of the case clearly shows the might of Akbar, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2569,2575,2576,960,2214],"class_list":["post-3662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-mee-too","tag-mj-akbar","tag-priya-ramani","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-wakilsahab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3664,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662\/revisions\/3664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakilsahab.in\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}