Environmental activist Medha Patkar has been sentenced to a prison term of five months along with a penalty of Rs 10 lakh for her statements made 23 years earlier. The Metropolitan Magistrate’s court in Delhi convicted her of defamation under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code, on 24th May, and pronounced the sentence on 1st July.
The complaint was made by V.K. Saxena, currently Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, in the year 2001 when he was president of National Council of Civil Liberties.
According to The Hindu, the non-governmental organisation headed by Saxena had published an advertisement against Ms. Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) movement, which opposed construction of a dam on the Narmada river.
In a press statement soon after, Ms Patkar said Mr. Saxena was a “coward” and not a “patriot”. In the press note, Ms Patkar said that Saxena had praised NBA and had given a cheque of Rs 40,000, which could not be encashed in a bank as it showed that the account did not exist.
Mr. Saxena approached the Metropolitan Magistrate’s court in Ahmedabad, which took cognisance of the offence under Section 500 of the IPC and initiated proceedings under Section 204 of the CrPC against Patkar. Two years later, a chief metropolitan magistrate (CMM) court in Delhi received the complaint following the orders of the Supreme Court. In 2011, Patkar pleaded not guilty and requested a trial.
In its conviction order on 1st July, the Delhi court said Ms Patkar’s actions were deliberate and malicious. “The accused’s statements, calling the complainant a coward, not a patriot, and alleging his involvement in hawala transactions, were not only defamatory per se but also crafted to incite negative perceptions,” the court said.
The accusation that Saxena was “mortgaging the people of Gujarat and their resources to foreign interests” was a direct attack on his integrity and public service, the court said. It added that Ms Patkar failed to provide any evidence to refute these claims or to demonstrate that she did not intend or foresee the harm these allegations would cause. (Sources: The Hindu, The Wire)
How the case was decided
- Actions of the accused were deliberate and malicious
- Statements of the accused were crafted to incite negative perceptions towards the complainant
- Statements were a direct attack on the integrity and public service of the complainant
- Accused failed to provide any evidence of her claims
- Accused did not demonstrate that she had not intended or foreseen harm from her statements
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