There have been two watershed moments in the history of women’s rights for equality and dignity at the workplace. The first one was when Bhanwari Devi showed immense courage by pursuing legal remedies against her rapists, who had done everything humanly possible to dissuade her from doing her job. This case, taken up by an NGO, had then given birth to the Vishakha Guidelines, framed by the Supreme Court in 1997. The second one has to be now, in 2021, when the Trial Court acquitted Priya Ramani of criminal charges in the MJ Akbar case upholding that women cannot be punished for raising their voice against sexual harassment on the pretext of criminal complaint of defamation.
The Facts:
Priya Ramani, a senior journalist, took to popular media portals such as the Vogue, the Firstpost, etc., in 2017, to level charges of sexual harassment and misconduct against MJ Akbar, a former editor and Union Minister, without naming him. Ramani had alleged that in 1993, Akbar had called her to his hotel room and had tried to sexually harass her during a job interview. In October 2018, in the wake of the #MeToo movement in India, Ramani tweeted regarding her previously published 2017 Vogue India piece, stating, “I began this piece with my MJ Akbar story. Never named him because he didn’t “do” anything. Lots of women have worse stories about this predator—maybe they’ll share.” Ramani’s allegations found a solid footing when many other victims such as Ruth David, Majilie de Puy Kamp, Ghazala Wahab, Sutapa Paul, etc., came forward with their stories of sexual harassment by MJ Akbar. As many as 20 women voiced their grievances. Following much hue and cry, MJ Akbar resigned as a minister and after that filed a defamation case against Ramani for damaging his “stellar” reputation as a journalist.
The Judgment:
The judgment acknowledged the #Metoo movement for allowing women to speak up against sexual harassment and captured a bird’s eye view of the body of laws on sexual harassment and violence against women. What makes this judgment revolutionary is that the judge showed much-required empathy for the victims of sexual harassment by acknowledging that the offense of sexual harassment and sexual abuse is almost always committed behind closed doors. Sometimes, the victims themselves do not understand what is happening to them is wrong. The Court pointed out that despite how well respected some persons are in society, they could still show extreme cruelty to the females in their personal lives.
The judge noted that the time has come for our society to understand sexual-harassment and its implications on victims. The victim may keep believing that she is at fault and may live with that shame for decades. The judgment highlighted that most victims do not speak up because of the guilt or the social stigma attached to sexual harassment and abuse. What makes this judgment so important is that for the very first time, a Court gave greater weightage to a woman’s fundamental Right to Life under Article 21 and the Right to Equality as guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution over the Right to the reputation of the accused. The Court acknowledged that when these instances of sexual harassment and misconduct had taken place, there were no Vishaka Guidelines or PoSH Act to protect the women. Hence, it is only justified that such women voice their grievances at any platform even decades after the incident.
The Opinion:
The Priya Ramani- MJ Akbar case brings out so many troubling aspects of the world we live in. Despite living in the 21st century, this was a classic case of victim shaming where the accused was not only not punished for his actions but had instead filed a defamation case. MJ Akbar used the most common ploy in an accused’s book: to term the complaint as false, file a counter case, and make the complainant into an accused and vice-versa.
Unlike the other victims who came forward, Priya Ramani had not been subjected to any physical form of sexual harassment. But does that make MJ Akbar’s act of sexual misconduct any less alarming? Here was a successful journalist/editor, with years of experience behind him, behaving inappropriately with a young journalist at the nascent stage of her career. There were no Vishaka Guidelines present in the 90s for Priya Ramani to come forward and file a complaint, but even if there had been a system in place, would you have judged her if she had not filed a complaint?
Apart from spelling out the victims’ fundamental rights, the Trial Court must be credited for another observation that it made- it demystified the assumption that successful men cannot be sexual predators. Success has nothing to do with how a man decides to treat the women at his workplace. As was observed by the Court, the Economic Survey Report of the year 2020-2021 for the pan Indian workforce participation rate of females in the production age (15 to 59 years) was 26.5% in 2018-2019 as compared to 80.3% for males. The Report, presented before both houses of Parliament, has suggested that to incentivize more women to join the workforce, apart from the investment in institutional support and other areas, it is vital to provide a safe work environment. Even though the fact remains that MJ Akbar remains unpunished for his ghastly actions, this judgment will always be remembered for the brave women who dared to speak up and win against all odds.
Author: Rakhi Mohanty
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