Journalist Priya Ramani told a Delhi court on Friday that BJP parliamentarian M.J. Akbar had filed a “false” defamation case against her to intimidate her and the other women who had accused him of sexual harassment.

Akbar, a former editor, had resigned from the Union ministry last year after several women journalists accused him of sexually inappropriate conduct. Ramani had been the first to speak out against him as part of the “Me Too” movement.

Akbar and his witnesses have had their statements recorded and undergone cross-examination, during which Ramani’s lawyers tried to establish he had no reputation to protect as there were several complaints against him.

On Friday, Ramani made her deposition before additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal.

“This is a false and malicious case filed to create a chilling effect against women who spoke out about their experience of sexual harassment at the hands of Mr Akbar,” she said. “It is an attempt to intimidate me. By deliberately targeting me, Akbar seeks to divert the attention away from the serious allegations of sexual misconduct against him and the public outrage that followed.”

While defendants’ depositions are usually routine proceedings in which they merely deny or briefly contest the allegations, Ramani countered each of Akbar’s witnesses elaborately and argued that they were “false” and “motivated” witnesses.

In response to the testimony of Akbar’s first witness, The Sunday Guardian editor Joyeeta Basu, Ramani said: “Ms Basu is a false witness and her tweet, supporting the complaint, the day after I tweeted shows that Akbar’s reputation was not destroyed or irreparably harmed in her eyes.”

She went on: “Akbar is deliberately singling out my tweets and articles. The articles were based on the collective account of many women, including me, who spoke out about their experiences at the hands of Akbar.”

About three dozen other journalists have accused Akbar of sexual harassment.

“It is unfortunate that women who had faced sexual harassment at the workplace must now defend themselves in criminal proceedings for speaking the truth,” Ramani said.

Her lawyers listed as witnesses Niloufer Venkatraman, to whom Ramani had first narrated her complaint in 1993, and Ghazala Wahab, another former colleague of Akbar who has alleged molestation and harassment by him.

The proceedings are scheduled to continue at the Rouse Avenue District Courts on September 7.