NEW DELHI: A former colleague of editor-turned-politician M J Akbar, who has filed a defamation case against a woman journalist for levelling charges of sexual misconduct, described him as a “thorough gentleman and a brilliant teacher” in a Delhi court on Monday.
Joyeeta Basu, the editor of The Sunday Guardian, told the Patiala House court that the 67-year-old former Union minister had been “vilified intentionally”.
Basu is among the six witnesses whom Akbar has named in the lawsuit that he filed after stepping down as the Minister of State for External Affairs, after nearly 20 women journalists accused him of sexual harassment during his stint as the editor of The Asian Age.
Basu accused fellow journalist Priya Ramani— the first to come out with her account of sexual harassment — of trying to “harm his (Akbar’s) reputation”. “I may have overcome my doubts, but I know from the number of questions raised by people I know. His reputation has been destroyed and damaged irrevocably. After reading all the tweets by Ms Priya Ramani, I believe that this vilification was conducted and the tweets published intentionally by Ms Ramani with the purpose to harm Mr Akbar's good reputation and goodwill,” Basu reportedly told
the court.
Basu said she had known Akbar since 1998 and had not heard “anything untoward” from staff wherever they worked together. “I considered him to be a brilliant journalist, a scholarly writer and a thorough gentleman with an impeccable reputation in my eyes and in the eyes of the public.”
Journalist in soup
Senior journalist Gaurav Sawant was accused of sexual harassment by a woman scribe. In a piece published in a magazine, journalist Vidya Krishnan alleged the incident occurred during a trip organised by the Army in 2003, when she was a rookie reporter with an English language daily. She claimed Sawant knew her from before as he had taught at the Amity University where she studied. Later, Sawant tweeted that the article was “irresponsible, baseless, and completely false”. The anchor-cum-reporter said he was talking to his lawyers and would take full legal action.