Delhi Lt Governor Will get Aid In Defamation Case Filed By Activist Medha Patkar
New Delhi:
In a serious reduction to Lieutenant Governor V.Ok. Saxena, a Delhi courtroom on Tuesday dismissed an utility of social employee Medha Patkar to look at an extra witness in her defamation case in opposition to him, terming her utility “a deliberate try to delay the trial”.
The 24-year-old litigation pertains to the time when LG Saxena was lively in Gujarat and had not assumed cost in Delhi’s Raj Niwas. The case was moved to Delhi’s Saket Court docket in 2003 on the orders of the Supreme Court docket.
Mr Saxena was heading an Ahmedabad-based NGO ‘Council for Civil Liberties’ in 2000 when Ms Patkar filed a defamation case in opposition to him for publishing commercials in opposition to her and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Later, Mr Saxena additionally filed a defamation case in opposition to Ms Patkar for defaming him in a press notice dated November 25, 2000, titled “True face of patriot.” She was sentenced to 5-month easy imprisonment final 12 months. The sentence was later suspended and he or she was granted bail.
Dismissing Ms Patkar’s plea on Tuesday, Metropolitan Justice of the Peace Raghav Sharma of Saket Court docket pulled up the social employee, saying, “The truth that this witness has surfaced solely now, after all of the complainant’s (Ms Patkar’s) witnesses have been examined raises severe doubt in regards to the genuineness of this request.”
The courtroom noticed, “The current case has been pending for twenty-four years and the complainant (Ms Patkar) has already examined all of the witnesses initially listed on the time of submitting the grievance. Notably, she had beforehand additionally filed an utility… but she didn’t current the brand new witness in that utility.”
The courtroom noticed, “The whole absence of any reference to this witness, having not been talked about even as soon as in the course of the 24 years trial, additional means that it’s an afterthought, probably launched to bolster the complainant’s case artificially.”
“She has not been capable of clarify as to how such current discovery of this new witness occurred and this lack of clarification additional weakens the credibility of her request,” mentioned the courtroom.
Observing that regardless of the current utility being filed underneath a unsuitable provision of regulation, the courtroom selected the appliance completely on its benefit.
Justice of the Peace Sharma mentioned, “Permitting such utility with out correct justification would set a harmful precedent. If events are permitted to introduce new witnesses arbitrarily at such a late stage, trials would change into endless, as litigants may constantly deliver to courtroom new witnesses at any time when it fits them, thereby prolonging proceedings indefinitely. The judicial course of can’t be held hostage to such ways, particularly in a case that has already been pending for over 20 years.”
It could be famous that LG Saxena’s counsel has been bringing to the discover of the courtroom that from June 20, 2005, to February 1, 2023, the trial has been delayed greater than 94 occasions on account of complainant Ms Patkar’s absence or for shifting adjournment utility by her.
The counsel mentioned after the issuance of the summons in 2005, she didn’t seem and sought greater than 46 adjournments for recording her proof and ignored and averted the method of regulation and appeared earlier than the trial courtroom for the primary time in 2012, seven years after the issuance of summons.
The petition identified that after 20 adjournments, Ms Patkar appeared and concluded her examination in chief and for an extended interval she remained absent for her cross-examination and took 24 adjournments.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
