New Delhi: A Delhi court reserved its order for January 29 on whether to summon Priya Ramani as an accused in the defamation case filed by former Union minister MJ Akbar after she accused him of sexual misconduct.

Six people have given positive testimony on behalf of Akbar.

Editor-turned-politician Akbar had denied all allegations of sexual misconduct and had sued Ramani, seeking her prosecution under Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC for defamation.

On October 17, Akbar had stepped down as a junior foreign minister following a flurry of allegations made against him by at least 15 women, who accused him of sexual misconduct during his stint as the editor of The Asian Age.

Ramani, the first to name him in a Twitter post on October 8, had revealed that an article she had written last year about an editor inviting her to his hotel room for a job interview and asking her to sit on the bed with him, was Akbar.
 
Following this, multiple allegations of sexual harassment surfaced against the former editor. Akbar has denied the charges, terming them “a figment of imagination” and dismissed the #metoo movement as a “viral fever” in a statement.

The Editor’s Guild of India had taken a stand against their former president and had issued a statement asking #MeToo-accused Akbar to withdraw the defamation case that he has filed on Ramani.