‘Satire May Sting, But It’s Not a Crime’: Delhi Court Dismisses FIR Plea Against Kunal Kamra

The order was passed while deciding an application under Section 175(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), seeking court-monitored directions for registration of an FIR against Kamra in relation to his video titled “Naya Bharat”, uploaded in March 2025. The video lampoons political defections in Maharashtra and contains sharp commentary aimed, inter alia, at Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

At the outset, JMFC Himanshu Sehloth of Rohini Court framed the case as one situated “at the intersection of individual freedom of expression and the State’s duty to maintain public order,” emphasising that its role was not to adjudge taste or civility but to examine whether the coercive machinery of the State could lawfully intervene.

Describing freedom of speech as “the oxygen of democratic life,” the Court warned that the law must “breathe with it, not smother it.”

The complainant, a Delhi-based office bearer of a faction of the Shiv Sena, alleged that the video employed provocative terms such as “gaddar” and “dalbadlu,” distorted facts, and was likely to promote enmity and ill-will between political and ideological groups. It was argued that widespread circulation of the video on social media platforms, coupled with Maharashtra’s volatile political climate, justified criminal action even in the absence of actual violence.

However, the Action Taken Report (ATR) placed before the court revealed that an FIR bearing No. 194/2025 had already been registered at Khar Police Station, Mumbai, on the basis of a complaint by a Maharashtra MLA over the same video. That FIR invoked substantially similar offences, was under investigation, and Kamra had already been granted anticipatory bail by the Bombay High Court.

On the issue of multiple FIRs, the court held that directing a second FIR in Delhi would amount to an abuse of process. Relying on settled Supreme Court jurisprudence, including T.T. Antony v. State of Kerala and Amitbhai Anilchandra Shah v. CBI, the court reiterated that a single incident cannot give rise to successive FIRs across jurisdictions merely because the content was viewed or caused offence in different places. Allowing such a course, it observed, would convert investigation into persecution and subject citizens to oppressive, repetitive criminal process.

Turning to the merits, the Court found that even if the allegations were taken at their highest, the essential ingredients of any cognisable offence were absent. It noted that the video, though harsh and uncharitable in tone, did not incite violence, call for public disorder, or pose an imminent threat to public tranquillity. Political satire, the Court said, often uses exaggerated metaphors of betrayal and opportunism, and criminalising such rhetoric would conflate political contestation with public mischief.

“The law does not recognise a right against humiliation in political life,” the court observed, adding that public figures must endure a higher degree of scrutiny, parody, and ridicule. Offence or wounded pride, it clarified, is not the legal test of criminality.

In strong constitutional terms, the Court underlined that dissent, even when uncomfortable or irreverent, lies at the heart of democratic functioning. Warning against the “weaponisation” of criminal law, it held that Courts must act as sentinels to ensure that prosecution is not used as a tool to silence criticism. The remedy for disagreeable speech, it stressed, is not police action but counter-speech and debate.

Concluding that the complaint disclosed no cognisable offence and that a second FIR was legally impermissible, the court dismissed the application. It held that democracy is not imperilled by satire or dissent but by intolerance of them, reaffirming that freedoms under Articles 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution are birthrights, not concessions of the State.

The matter has been listed for further procedural steps on January 30, 2026.