The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the conviction of activist Medha Patkar in a defamation case filed 25 years ago by the current Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena. The case dates back to the year 2000, when Saxena was heading a Gujarat-based NGO, the National Council of Civil Liberties.
A Bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh refused to interfere with the Delhi High Court’s earlier decision, which had maintained Patkar’s conviction but released her on probation of good conduct. However, the Supreme Court removed the penalty imposed and clarified that the supervision order attached to the probation would not be enforced.
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“Taking into consideration the submissions of the petitioner’s counsel, the penalty imposed stands set aside, and the supervision order will not be given effect,” the court stated.
The Delhi High Court, on July 29, 2025, had upheld both the conviction and sentence against the 70-year-old activist, ruling that the trial court’s findings were based on proper evaluation of evidence and law. The court observed that Patkar failed to prove any procedural errors or legal mistakes that could have caused a miscarriage of justice.
The trial court had initially sentenced Patkar to five months’ simple imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹10 lakh under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for defamation. This was later modified by the sessions court, which upheld the conviction but released her on a probation bond of ₹25,000, with a condition to deposit ₹1 lakh as fine.
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The probation terms were also eased by the High Court, allowing Patkar to appear before the trial court once every three months either physically, via video conferencing, or through her lawyer. The Supreme Court has now further relaxed these conditions.
The defamation case stemmed from a press release issued by Patkar on November 24, 2000, where she accused Saxena of “mortgaging” the people and resources of Gujarat to foreign interests.
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The magisterial court noted that these remarks were “per se defamatory” and “crafted to incite negative perceptions” about Saxena, directly questioning his integrity and public service.
On May 24, 2024, the court held her statements as damaging and unjustified, and on April 2, 2025, the sessions court confirmed that Patkar was “rightly convicted,” dismissing her appeal for acquittal.
