Akbar to court: Ramani destroyed evidence by deleting Twitter account

FORMER UNION Minister M J Akbar, who has filed a criminal defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani over allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment, told a Delhi court through his lawyers on Thursday that she “deliberately, intentionally, maliciously” destroyed evidence by deleting the Twitter account.

Akbar has sued Ramani over allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment. With several other women making similar allegations against him, Akbar resigned as Minister of State for External Affairs in October 2018.

The submissions were made by senior advocate Geeta Luthra on behalf of Akbar before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Pandey. Her rebuttal could not be completed and will be heard again on January 23.

Luthra told the court, “This strange argument that this Twitter account, the court didn’t tell me to save so I didn’t. How can one take a defence like this?”

Luthra told the court that Ramani knew there was a criminal complaint pending against her. “These are all tweets. They were all primary evidence. Can she destroy evidence… another criminal case can be made out… All evidence which was part of the trial… deliberately, intentionally, maliciously has been destroyed…” Luthra told the court.

She told the court that Ramani said “there was no overt physical attack”.