Patkar plea for extra witness rejected

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday dismissed a plea by activist Medha Patkar to examine an additional witness in a defamation case she filed in 2000 against Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena. The court observed that the request appeared to be "a deliberate attempt to delay the trial rather than a genuine necessity." Patkar and Saxena have been locked in a legal tussle since 2000 after she filed the present suit against him for publishing advertisements against her.Judicial magistrate first class Raghav Sharma said if the witness were relevant, their name or role would have been mentioned during the 24 years of proceedings. "The judicial process cannot be held hostage to such tactics," he said. On March 6, the court had reserved its order on the plea after Patkar had sought the court's permission to examine an additional witness on Feb 17. Advocates Gajinder Kumar and Kiran Jai, representing the LG, told the court that the trial had been delayed more than 94 times between June 2005 and Feb 2023 due to Patkar's absence or her adjournment requests. The counsels said that after summons were issued in 2005, she sought over 46 adjournments and first appeared before the trial court in 2012, seven years after the summons. The court said Patkar had failed to explain when or how she became aware of the witness, casting doubt on the credibility of her request.