The Allahabad High Court has dismissed the plea filed by Bhojpuri singer Neha Singh Rathore seeking to quash a first information report registered against her in connection with social media posts about the April 22 deadly attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
In its order delivered on Friday, a division bench of Justices Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Syed Qamar Hasan Rizvi observed that Rathore had allegedly referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a derogatory manner in her posts.
The court held that the allegations against her prima facie disclosed a cognisable offence, thereby justifying a police investigation. It further remarked that the timing of her posts—immediately after the Pahalgam attack—was also significant.
The bench directed Rathore to appear before the investigating officer on September 26 and instructed her to cooperate with the inquiry until the police submitted its report.
The FIR against Rathore was lodged in late April at the Hazratganj police station in Lucknow under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions for sedition as well as under the Information Technology Act.
The case was filed after Rathore posted a video on social media in which she alleged that the Pahalgam attack represented an intelligence and security failure of the Bharatiya Janata Party–led Union government.
In the same video, she further claimed that Modi would seek electoral mileage in Bihar by invoking the Pahalgam attack, just as he had after the 2019 Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel.
Challenging this FIR, Neha Singh Rathore approached the court seeking its quashing. Her counsel argued during the proceedings that she was entitled to express her views under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, and that no state authority could infringe upon such a fundamental right.
The bench, however, rejected this contention, noting that although Article 19 guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression, it is subject to reasonable restrictions necessary to maintain public order, morality, and decency. The court said that Rathore’s remarks had directly named the prime minister in an allegedly derogatory and disrespectful manner while also accusing the BJP of instigating conflict with Pakistan for political gain.
“Name of the prime minister of India has been used in a derogatory and disrespectful manner,” Bar and Bench quoted the order as saying.
The court further noted: “In such comments, the petitioner has used religious angle, Bihar election angle accusing the prime minister by name and saying that the BJP government is sacrificing the life of thousands of soldiers for its vested interest pushing the country in a war with a neighbouring country.”
