NEW DELHI: In a major setback to activist and Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar, who was found guilty in a defamation case filed by Delhi's Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena in 2001, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the Delhi High Court's order upholding the trial court's order of convicting her to five months in jail in the case.
"We are not inclined to interfere with the conviction (of the Delhi HC)," said a two-judge bench of the top court, headed by Justice M M Sundresh and Justice N Kotiswar Singh.
The top court passed the order of not interfering with the Delhi HC order, after the NBA leader had moved the apex court challenging the HC order of conviction.
The top court, however, set aside the penalty of Rs 1 lakh imposed upon her, taking up her appeal into consideration. It allowed her to furnish bonds by modifying the order on her release on probation of good conduct.
The complainant, Saxena, had filed the defamation case against Patkar in 2001, when he was the former president of an Ahmedabad-based NGO, National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL).
As per the case details, Saxena had in 2000 published an advertisement against Patkar's NBA, the movement that opposed the construction of dams over the Narmada river.
After seeing the advertisement, Patkar had issued a press note against Saxena. The note stated that Saxena was “mortgaging the people of Gujarat and their resources before Bill Gates and Wolfensohn and he was an agent of the Government of Gujarat”.
This press note of Patkar led Saxena to file a defamation suit against her before a court in Ahmedabad in 2001. The case was later transferred to Delhi in 2003 on the orders of the Supreme Court.
During the hearing on Monday, senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, appearing for Patkar, submitted that there was no direct evidence linking the alleged press note with her.
The top court, however, rejected his submission and modified the order on penalty as well as the supervision order which required her periodic appearance.
A Delhi court had on July 1 last year sentenced her to five months in jail in the more than two-decade-old case.
On July 29, 2025, the Delhi HC also subsequently upheld her conviction, finding no illegality or material irregularity in the trial court's judgment.
The HC had said that the order of conviction was passed after due consideration of evidence and the applicable law.
"It is evident that the accused (Patkar) harboured a clear intention to defame the complainant through her press note, given the deliberate and calculated nature of her statements," the HC said in its order.