Delhi court acquits L-G Saxena in 2000 defamation case filed by Medha Patkar

A court in New Delhi on Thursday (January 29, 2026) acquitted Delhi Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena in a 25-year-old defamation case filed by activist Medha Patkar, stating that the complainant failed to prove her charges against him.

The order was pronounced by Judicial Magistrate First Class Raghav Sharma. In March 2025, the court had dismissed Patkar’s application to examine additional witnesses in the case, terming it a “deliberate attempt to delay the trial, rather than a genuine necessity”.

Ms. Patkar and Mr. Saxena had been locked in a legal tussle since 2000 after she filed a suit against him for publishing advertisements against her and the ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’.

Mr. Saxena, who then headed an Ahmedabad-based NGO named ‘Council for Civil Liberties’, had also filed two cases against Ms. Patkar in 2001 for making derogatory remarks against him on a TV channel and issuing a defamatory press statement.