The allegations did not disclose the intent that the offences invoked require, the Court held, as the Bombay High Court Quashes FIR Against Pune Engineering Student over her reposting of a post on Operation Sindoor.
Mumbai: A 20-year-old engineering student in Pune, booked at Kondhwa Police Station for reposting an Instagram post on the Indian Army’s Operation Sindoor, has had the FIR against her quashed by the Bombay High Court on Tuesday (October 27), which held that the material did not disclose the intent required for the offences invoked [K.S.S. v. State of Maharashtra and Others].
Justice Milind N. Jadhav allowed Criminal Application No. 598 of 2025 in terms of the prayer to quash FIR No. 380 of 2025, registered on May 9, 2025 under Sections 152, 196, 197, 299, 352 and 353 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The applicant is identified only by her initials here, and the post is not reproduced.
Displeasure is not a ground for prosecution
The Court noted that the applicant did not author or create the original post, and that she took down the repost herself, not at the instance of the investigators. On the material before it, the Court held, it was not shown how the repost met the essential ingredients of the offences invoked. On the effect a publication may have on those who read it, it held:
“the mere possibility that a publication may cause displeasure or resentment cannot, by itself, constitute sufficient ground for criminal prosecution.”
An apprehension of a possible disturbance, the Court added, cannot stand in for the specific acts the law requires, and no actual communal incident had been brought to its notice. It also observed that the two-day gap between the deletion and the registration of the FIR did not by itself make the prosecution illegal, though the circumstances of the registration and arrest called for consideration.
A young applicant, a single repost
The Court weighed that the applicant is a young engineering student with a career ahead of her, that she had already spent time in custody, and that the prosecution rested only on the act of reposting. Calling the episode an isolated repost followed by remorse, it said:
“A youthful error of judgment cannot automatically be equated with a deliberate criminal act.”
The FIR did not disclose the intent required for the offences alleged, and continuing the proceedings would serve no legitimate purpose, the Court found. It therefore allowed the application and quashed the FIR.
The road to the High Court
By the applicant’s account, she reposted on May 7, 2025 a post from an Instagram handle that was critical of the government’s role in the India-Pakistan tensions. She deleted it within about two hours and issued a public apology after receiving threats. Her college in Pune took action against her over the posts, saying they brought disrepute to the institution, and the police registered the FIR on May 9, 2025.
In the May 2025 summer vacation, a vacation bench of Justice Gauri Godse and Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan directed the police to release her immediately and the college to let her sit her pending examinations. The High Court set aside the college’s rustication letter in June 2025. At earlier hearings on the quashing plea, it had observed that deleting the post and apologising would not alone justify quashing.
What the order settles
Offences such as promoting enmity, imputations prejudicial to national integration and statements conducing to public mischief need more than offence taken at a post. Applied to a reposted item, the settled position means that a court looks for specific acts and intent, not for a possible reaction to speech.
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The order also shows that age, remorse and time already spent in custody can count when the High Court uses its inherent power to quash an FIR where the prosecution would serve no useful purpose. It is confined to the facts of this case and does not endorse the content of the original post, on which the Court has not ruled.
Case Title: K.S.S. v. State of Maharashtra and Others [Criminal Application No. 598 of 2025]
Bench: Justice Milind N. Jadhav, Bombay High Court
Date of Order: October 27, 2026
Appearances: Advocate Farhana Shah, with Advocates Omar Shah and Amna Khan, for the applicant; APP Amit A. Palkar for the State