The hearing of MJ Akbar's criminal defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani began afresh on Friday before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ravindra K Pandey. The case had been transferred from Judge Vishal Pahuja.
Senior advocate Rebecca John, appearing for Ramani, recounted all the previous submissions before the court.
She laid before the court that Ramani’s tweets and article were “the truth, in public good and made in good faith”. “Incident[s] of sexual harassment touches upon a public question. It can never be held that such disclosure is not for public good, public interest.” She also said that there was a deliberate misreading of Ramani’s Vogue article and that Akbar had not "come to court with clean hands".
