Delhi HC Quashes Attempt to Murder Case Against Prof Madhu Kishwar, Terms FIR ‘Malicious Counter-Blast’

The Delhi High Court has quashed a 17-year-old attempt-to-murder case lodged against academic  Prof. Madhu Kishwar, holding that the FIR was a fabricated, retaliatory complaint arising from an alleged altercation with the Basoya family while she was photographing unauthorised constructions in the city.

Justice Amit Mahajan, while hearing Kishwar’s plea, said, “The subject FIR appears to be in the nature of defence and a maliciously motivated counter-blast to FIR No. 666/2007 for wreaking vengeance upon the petitioner.”

The case arose from an incident in which the petitioner had gone to Seva Nagar Market to take photographs of illegal encroachments for documentation for her human-rights organisation Manushi. According to her, members of the Basoya family, who ran shops in the area, objected and assaulted her and her driver to stop her from taking pictures.

Following this, Kishwar lodged an FIR, accusing the family of rioting and criminal intimidation.

A trial Court convicted the Basoya family in 2019 for the assault.

In June 2008, the family filed an FIR at Police Station K.M. Pur, accusing Kishwar of attempt to murder (Section 307 IPC), assault (323), criminal intimidation (506) and common intention (34). It was alleged that when they confronted her over money supposedly taken for shop allotments in Seva Nagar, she told her driver to run them over, and that her car hit the complainant before Kishwar and others beat the family members, causing injuries.

The Court, allowing Kishwar’s plea, said the case was a “maliciously motivated counter-blast” to the earlier FIR.

“Even if the allegations of the complainant are taken at the highest, considering the complainant’s conviction in a case arising out of the same incident, the same can at best be considered as self-defence or an altercation at the stage when the complainant has formed an unlawful assembly and caused injuries to the petitioner and another person when they were carrying out certain functions assigned to them.”

The Court noted that both FIRs arose from the same 2007 altercation and that continuing proceedings in the second case would serve no purpose.

Accordingly, the High Court quashed the FIR and all consequential proceedings, calling it an example of misuse of criminal law.“In such a factual background, setting the criminal law machinery in motion only for the reason that the complaint discloses commission of a cognizable offence would be an abuse of the process of the Court.”

Case Title: Prof. Madhu Kishwar v. State

Bench: Justice Amit Mahajan

Order Date: 16 October 2025