Activist Medha Patkar arrested in Delhi over L-G defamation case
text_fields
New Delhi: Activist Medha Patkar was arrested on Friday following the issuance of a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against her in a defamation case filed by Delhi Lt Governor V.K. Saxena.
The Delhi Police apprehended Patkar in the morning, and she is set to be produced in court later in the day. The warrant was issued on Wednesday after Patkar failed to appear in court and comply with the sentencing order related to the decades-old defamation case, originally filed in 2001.
The court observed that Patkar had deliberately flouted its sentencing order, which required her to submit probation bonds and pay a fine of Rs one lakh.
Additional Sessions Judge Vishal Singh noted that the 70-year-old activist had remained absent instead of complying with the April 8 sentencing, thereby forfeiting the opportunity to benefit from probation by furnishing the compensation amount.
“The intention of convict Medha Patkar is apparent that she is deliberately violating the Court order; she is avoiding to appear before the Court and also avoiding to accept the terms of the sentence passed against her,” said an order passed by Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Vishal Singh of the Saket Court.
The court said that Patkar, instead of appearing before it and complying with the sentence order, remained absent and deliberately failed to comply with the order on sentence. “The Court is left with no option but to enforce the production of convict Medha Patkar through a coercive order. Issue NBW (non-bailable warrant) against convict Medha Patkar, through the office of the Commissioner of Police, Delhi Police, for the next date,” the judge said.
Further, ASJ Singh cautioned that if the convict fails to comply with the terms of the order on sentence by the next date, then it will be constrained to reconsider the benevolent sentence and will have to alter the order on sentence. The court said that Patkar’s plea for adjournment of the proceedings was frivolous and mischievous and was only calculated to hoodwink it.
On April 8, Patkar, a leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), was ordered to be released on probation of good conduct for a period of one year, subject to prior deposit of a compensation amount of Rs 1 lakh, to be released in favour of the complainant (Saxena). The appellate court had modified the order of the trial court, which had sentenced Patkar to five months of simple imprisonment, apart from ordering her to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to Saxena for the harm caused to his reputation.
The defamation case dates back to 2001, when V.K. Saxena, then chief of the Ahmedabad-based NGO National Council for Civil Liberties, filed two defamation suits against Medha Patkar. One case involved allegedly derogatory remarks she made during a television interview, while the other stemmed from a press statement.
This legal dispute originated from an earlier suit filed by Patkar in 2000, accusing Saxena of publishing defamatory advertisements targeting her and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Saxena was represented in court by advocates Gajinder Kumar, Kiran Jai, Chandra Shekhar, Drishti, and Somya Arya.
(inputs from IANS)
