Medhapadkar Landacqusition Bill 2011
On July 29, the minister put the draft Land Acquisition (Amendment) and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill online inviting suggestions and objections
 from the public. While Patkar welcomed the move to combine land acquisition and relief and rehabilitation issues in the same bill, she contended that the
 proposed draft was not comprehensive and failed to addresscertain concerns raised by project affected people (PAP).

While the new bill states that 80% consent of PAPs will be needed for acquisition of land for private purposes, Patkar said the same condition was not
 being extended for government acquisitions. This would mean that proposed projects like Jaitapur nuclear power plant, dams, thermal power plants, airports
 etc will not need people's consent. She further alleged that the definition of public purpose in the draft covered building educational institutions,
 airports andmining, where a large number of private firms are involved.
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Court turns down plea on Patkar

Aug 03, 2011 | Age Correspondent | New Delhi    ASIAN AGE
There was relief for Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar with a Delhi court on Tuesday declining to entertain a plea by an NGO, which sought
 initiation of an inquiry against the leader for not attending the proceedings in cross-defamation cases between them.

Metropolitan magistrate Munish Markan refused to entertain the plea of National Council for Civil Liberties president V.K. Saxena, who orally submitted to
 the court to take cognisance of the offence of misusing “common man’s money” for individual purposes and initiate an inquiry against the leader.
After hearing the plea of the NGO, Judge Markan said, “In my considered view, no useful purpose will be solved by accepting the plea for initiating an
inquiry. It will only distract the main case (of defamation).”
Mr Saxena and Ms Patkar have been embroiled in several criminal cases of defamation against each other after the former allegedly published advertisements
 against her and the NBA. Mr Saxena sought an inquiry into Ms Patkar’s claim that on one of the previous hearing she was in Indore and had missed a flight
 due to which she could not attend the court proceedings.