The Ahmedabad court that earlier this week refused to stay the criminal trial against Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) Vinai Kumar Saxena made its decision because the government had made no request “to not continue or withdraw the trial proceedings”. Also, since Saxena was not in the post at the time of the alleged offence, “there is no legal position to stay the proceedings”, the court said. Saxena, who took over as Delhi LG in May 2022, had filed an application before the court on March 1, asking that the proceedings in the case be kept in abeyance for the period he is in the post. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pareshgiri Natvargar Goswami rejected his plea on May 8. The reasoned order of the court was released on Friday. The court noted that Saxena had filed his plea just as the cross-examination of the complainant, activist Medha Patkar, is to begin, and 71 witnesses are still to be examined. The incident On April 7, 2002, weeks after the post-Godhra communal riots in Gujarat, two peace meetings were convened at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad — by the celebrated danseuse Mallika Sarabhai, and the late Gandhian and Sarvodaya leader Chunibhai Vaidya. A group of political leaders and workers arrived at the Ashram and allegedly assaulted Medha Patkar, who was then at the forefront of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), a social movement against large dams on the Narmada. The mob also targeted Sarabhai. A police party led by then Deputy Commissioner of Police V M Pargi, who was sent by his then boss, Additional Commissioner of Police Shivanand Jha, to control the situation, tried to rescue Patkar and scatter the mob. In the police lathicharge, several people, including journalists, were injured. “My task was to take Medha Patkar to a safe place and control the crowd, which also had journalists, photographers, policemen, and politicians,” Pargi, who retired as an Additional Director General of Police, told The Indian Express. “Had we not acted, there would have been bloodshed that day,” he said. The assault Activist Prakash Shah, who was a witness to the violent incidents, told The Indian Express: “We saw Medha being attacked brutally, including by Amit Thaker (who was then national general secretary of the BJP’s youth wing). Anything could have happened. Eventually police took Medha out the back door and I believe she was taken to the airport.” Sarabhai said she had wanted “anyone interested in peace” to speak on ways to rebuild Gujarat and Ahmedabad — and that she had deliberately not invited Patkar because “I was aware of the hatred against her that had been engineered in the name of the Narmada dam”. However, “On the morning of the meeting I was told by (the late activist and journalist) Digant Oza that Medha had come,” Sarabhai said. “At the meeting there were people from all over and Gujarati Muslim leaders had come out for the first time post the violence. The meeting was going well when during the lunch break, Medha arrived. I asked her to leave fearing that her presence may sideline the peace agenda,” Sarabhai said. But “within minutes”, Sarabhai said, “a mob came into the Ashram, violent and threatening and shouting anti-Medha slogans”. Sarabhai recalled “one man grabbing Medha’s hair and banging her head against a wall”. She herself was whisked away from the Ashram by a colleague on his scooter, Sarabhai said. Police action and cases Two FIRs were registered at the Sabarmati police station in Ahmedabad, on a complaint each by Pargi and Patkar, under sections of the Indian Penal Code relating to unlawful assembly, rioting, voluntarily causing hurt, wrongful restraint, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, and criminal intimidation. Among the accused named in both FIRs were Saxena, who was then president of the NGO National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL); current first-time BJP MLAs Amit Thaker and Amit Popatlal Shah (who was then a BJP councillor in AMC); and Congress leader Rohit Patel. “The FIR by the government was later withdrawn and the trial that is going on is on the second FIR by Patkar,” Pargi said. Pargi himself was indicted by a committee headed by retired Gujarat High Court judge Justice Suhrud Deoprasad Dave, and got an “advisory” from the government warning him to “be careful in future”. Patkar vs Saxena The case was committed to trial in 2005 before an Ahmedabad magistrate’s court. It took until 2013 to issue summons to the accused. Only three accused have been cross-examined so far. The NCCL, which Saxena had founded in 1991, consistently opposed Patkar’s activism on the Narmada dam projects. Since 2000, Saxena and Patkar have fought multiple legal battles against each other. Patkar had filed a defamation suit against Saxena for publishing advertisements against her and the NBA; Saxena too had alleged defamation by Patkar in TV interviews. The two parties refused to accept a suggestion by a Delhi court for an out-of-court settlement on the defamation cases. Saxena had offered to settle only if Patkar agreed to withdraw the Ashram assault case. — With Leena Misra
