Medha Patkar defamation case: Delhi court reserves order on plea to introduce new witness

Delhi court reserves order on Medha Patkar's plea for additional witness in defamation case against V.K. Saxena.

A Delhi court on Thursday reserved its order on a plea by Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar to examine an additional witness in a defamation case filed by her against Delhi Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena.

Judicial magistrate Raghav Sharma ordered the matter to be put up on March 18.

Ms. Patkar and Mr. Saxena, who then headed an Ahmedabad-based NGO named ‘Council for Civil Liberties’, have been locked in a legal tussle since 2000 after she filed the present suit against him for publishing advertisements against her and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

The Delhi L-G, too, filed two cases against Ms. Patkar in 2001 for allegedly making derogatory remarks against him on a TV channel and for issuing a defamatory press statement. A Delhi court sentenced Ms. Patkar to five months’ simple imprisonment in one of these cases on July 1, 2024.

Pertaining to her case lodged in 2000, Ms. Patkar moved an application in the court on February 17 seeking the court’s permission to examine an additional witness, Nandita Narain, saying she was “relevant to the facts in the present matter”.

Mr. Saxena’s counsel, Gajinder Kumar, opposed the plea, stating that it had been filed belatedly after 24 years “to delay the judicial proceedings and defeat the ends of justice”.

The counsel said the case filed by Patkar on December 15, 2000, had been pending at the stage of complainant’s evidence since 2011.