MP high court quashes FIR against independent journalist who reported on Ganesh immersion violence

The Madhya Pradesh high court in an order dated October 28 quashed an FIR against independent journalist Uvesh Khan, holding that reporting on an incident concerning violence did not, by itself, constitute an offence.

Khan, who operates under the handle Uvesh Reporter, has over 8,000 subscribers on YouTube and over 2 lakh followers on Instagram. On September 6, 2025, he had made a video report on a Ganesh immersion procession in Silwani of Raisen district, where violence had broken out.

Khan had reported that around 9 pm on the day, as the Ganesh immersion ceremony was going on, a man was attacked with a stick, resulting in severe head injuries. On the same day, he had reported, another person was attacked with sticks near a Shiva Temple located close by.

The first incident was reported on by several other news outlets, including the News18 Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh. This report said, “CCTV footage clearly shows the attacker repeatedly beating the victim while the police officers stood by as mute spectators.”

Below is the footage:

FIR for ‘Instigating Fear and Confusion’ in Hindu Community

Two days later on September 8, 2025, an FIR was filed against him under Section 196(1) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), alleging that the reportage had the potential to provoke communal discord, by instigating fear and confusion among members of the Hindu community.

Alt News has learnt that on September 7, Khan had received multiple calls urging him to take down the video, a demand that he had complied with, apprehending that it could create trouble. However, a complaint was anyway filed against him. According to a legal notice seen by Alt News, the complainant was one Rajeev Soni, aged 40 years.

The FIR accused Khan of publishing news about these incidents on his personal YouTube channel in a manner that allegedly created an atmosphere of confusion and fear among the Hindu community. The complaint particularly highlighted the title of his video report — “Bloody clash during Ganesh Visarjan, violence at two locations, two people seriously injured” (translated from Hindi).

In his defense, Khan argued that the news report concerned an actual physical altercation, and did not contain any content that could potentially promote communal disharmony.

A source told Alt News that the whole fiasco had severely affected Khan’s audience reach. “He had earned quite a reputation as an independent journalist in a short amount of time, highlighting various issues in Silwani. It is likely that the FIR was registered against him by those who had vested interests in damaging his credibility as a journalist. Several other news organisations also reported on the same incident on that day, however, he was the only one singled out. He had to suffer for merely doing what his profession entails,” they told Alt News.

Continuation of Case would be Abuse of Law: Court

On October 28, 2026, Justice Himanshu Joshi quashed the FIR, stating that the impugned reportage did not meet the essential criteria of a non-bailable criminal act, under Section 196(1) of the BNSS, which corresponded to Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) — penalising acts that promote or attempt to promote disharmony, enmity, hatred, or ill-will between different groups on specified grounds.

Relying upon the principles laid down in Bilal Ahmed Kaloo v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1997), and citing the case of Patricia Mukhim v. State of Meghalaya (2021), the court reiterated that mens rea (criminal intent) was an essential ingredient of the offence under Section 153A of the IPC, and that the promotion of enmity or ill-will between at least two groups or communities was also necessary.

Mere incitement of the feelings of one community with no reference to another group did not by itself attract the provision, the court observed. The alleged words and expressions used must be assessed in their entirety, as well as in the context they were used, the order further noted.

Justice Joshi wrote in his order that the allegations forming the basis of the FIR could not identify any specific statements or expressions in the journalist’s report that could be regarded as an attempt to promote enmity between two communities. Hence, in the absence of specific allegations disclosing the essential ingredients of the offence, the high court ruled that mere possibility of public outrage or communal tension  did not, by itself, justify the continuation of criminal proceedings. “Continuation of the proceedings would amount to an abuse of the process of law,” the ruling observed.

Moreover, the court recognised that the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech and expression cannot be curtailed merely because a news report concerns a sensitive public incident. Any restriction on such expression must be justified in law, it stated.