LG Saxena defamation case: Delhi HC suspends Medha Patkar’s sentence
In a relief to activist Medha Patkar, the Delhi High Court on Friday suspended her sentence in a defamation case filed by Delhi LG VK Saxena in which she was arrested and produced in a sessions court earlier in the day.
Saxena filed the case 23 years ago when he was heading an NGO in Gujarat. On April 2, a sessions court upheld Patkar’s conviction in the defamation case but suspended her jail term and released her on “probation of good conduct”. It directed her to furnish a Rs 25,000 probation bond on April 8 and imposed a precondition of Rs 1 lakh fine.
Probation is a method of non-institutional treatment of offenders and a conditional suspension of sentence in which the offender, after conviction, is released on bond of good behaviour instead of being sent to prison.
However, a non-bailable warrant was issued against her after she failed to honour the conditions of probation on the prescribed date.
On Friday, Patkar was arrested and produced before a sessions court, following which the judge orally ordered her release subject to furnishing the bonds.
High court’s Justice Shalinder Kaur, however, suspended the sentence and granted her bail on a personal bond of Rs 25,000.
The court posted her plea against her punishment in the case on May 20. Patkar withdrew her plea challenging her conviction earlier in the day and filed a fresh one.
The 70-year-old Narmada Bachao Andolan leader has challenged the sessions court order which upheld her conviction by a magisterial court.
The magisterial court on July 1, 2024, sentenced her to five months’ simple imprisonment and slapped a Rs 10 lakh fine after finding her guilty under IPC Section 500 (defamation).
Saxena filed the case as president of the National Council of Civil Liberties against Patkar for her defamatory press release against Saxena issued on November 24, 2000.
On May 24, 2024, the magisterial court held that Patkar’s statements calling Saxena a “coward” and alleging his involvement in hawala transactions were not only defamatory per se but also “crafted to incite negative perceptions” about him.
The accusation that the complainant was “mortgaging” the people of Gujarat and their resources to foreign interests was a direct attack on his integrity and public service, it had said.
On April 2, an additional sessions judge had dismissed a challenge to the order and held Patkar was “rightly convicted” and there was “no substance” in the appeal against the verdict of her conviction in the defamation case.
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