Delhi High Court suspends activist Medha Patkar’s sentence in Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena defamation case

In a relief to activist Medha Patkar, the Delhi High Court on Friday suspended her sentence in a defamation case filed by Delhi Lieutenant Governor 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 modified her sentence 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 a 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 (NBW) 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.

In the meantime, the high court’s Justice Shalinder Kaur issued notice on her revision petition challenging her conviction and punishment and later suspended the sentence.

Patkar was granted bail on a personal bond of Rs 25,000.

Underlining the “contentious issues” raised over the suspension of the sentence, the court noted Patkar was taken into custody in execution of the NBW.

“Therefore, in these circumstances, by way of an interim means, the petitioner be released on bail on furnishing a personal bond in the sum of Rs 25,000 with one surety in the like amount to the satisfaction of the … (trial court),” the high court ordered.

The high court granted two weeks to Saxena’s counsel to file reply to the revision petition and posted her plea against her punishment in the case on May 20.

“In the meanwhile, the order on sentence is deferred till the next date of hearing,” it said.

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.

Senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, representing Patkar, said in the execution of the NBW, she has been arrested today and produced before the sessions court.

Parikh said that if the petitioner furnished the probation bond before the sessions court, this revision petition would become infructuous and sought suspension of her sentence.

Advocate Gajinder Kumar, who appeared for Saxena, opposed the plea and raised an objection, contending that it was an “abuse of process of the law” by the petitioner.

Patkar, he said, was first required to furnish the probation bond and the revision petition could be heard on its merits.

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 Section 500 (defamation) of the now defunct IPC.

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.