Patkar was convenor of NAPM-owned site that published defamatory press note, Witness tells Court

A witness told a Delhi court Thursday that NBA leader Medha Patkar was the convenor of National Alliance for Peoples Movement (NAPM) which owns the website on which the alleged defamatory press note against KVIC Chairperson V K Saxena was posted.

Architect Nilesh Sachdev was deposing in a criminal defamation complaint filed against Patkar by Saxena before Metropolitan Magistrate Nishant Garg.

"It is incorrect to suggest that accused Medha Patkar is not the convenor of NAPM," Sachdev told the court during his cross-examination by the counsel for Patkar.

Patkar and Saxena, the chief of the Khadi Village and Industries Commission (KVIC), have been embroiled in a legal battle since 2000 after she filed a suit against him for publishing advertisements against her and the Narmada Bachao Andolan, with a caption 'True face of Medha Patkar and her NBA'.

Saxena was then the head of an Ahmedabad-based NGO, National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL).

During the recording of testimony, Sachdev volunteered and said that he had "already deposed that the website narmada.org is owned by NAPM, Delhi, of which the accused was the convenor."
On questioning the witness that there was no document on record to show that accused Patkar is convenor of NAPM, he again volunteered that "I had stated that accused Medha Patkar has been convenor of NAPM."