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Observing that the applicant has failed to beryllium the lawsuit beyond a tenable uncertainty against the accused, a Delhi tribunal connected Saturday (January 24, 2026) acquitted Narmada Bachao Andolan activistic Medha Patkar successful a two-decade-old transgression defamation lawsuit lodged against her by Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G) V.K. Saxena.
Judicial Magistrate of First Class (JMFC) Raghav Sharma of Saket Courts acquitted Ms. Patkar of the offence of defamation.
The lawsuit stems from a lawsuit filed by Mr. Saxena successful 2006, who was past president of the National Council of Civil Liberties (NCCL). In his complaint, Mr. Saxena alleged that Ms. Patkar had made defamatory statements against him during a unrecorded tv programme.
It was alleged that Mr. Saxena had sent a ineligible announcement to Ms. Patkar and erstwhile helium received nary effect connected the same, helium approached the court.
Acquitting Ms. Patkar, the tribunal observed that neither the newsman who really recorded the audio-video nor immoderate idiosyncratic who had seen the accused making the impugned statements had been examined arsenic a witness.
“It is besides important to enactment that the clip played successful the programme/show appears to beryllium lone a precise abbreviated clipping from an interrogation oregon property league of the accused. To marque immoderate determination, it is indispensable that full video and audio of property league is brought earlier the tribunal oregon immoderate eyewitness to that property conference/interview depose astir the same. Without examining the full clip/footage of that interview, nary determination tin beryllium made regarding the code of the accused,” the tribunal said.
Concluding that the defamation allegation against Ms. Patkar remained unproven, the tribunal added that adjacent assuming the footage to beryllium admissible, it did not conclusively beryllium that she made the impugned statements against the complainant.
