Madhu Kishwar moves Punjab & Haryana HC to quash case over her X post about PM Modi

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday asked Chandigarh Police to respond to academic Madhu Purnima Kishwar's petition seeking quashing of a case related to circulation of a misleading video about Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media.

The X post shared by Kishwar had allegedly claimed that the man receiving a facial massage in the video was the Prime Minister. The claim was later debunked by fact-checkers.

Kishwar was eventually booked by Chandigarh Police. Her anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the High Court on May 29. She has now moved a petition for quashing the case registered by Sector 26 police station.

Today, Justice Vikram Aggarwal asked the Chandigarh Police to respond to Kishwar's petition.

However, the Court also questioned whether it can entertain her petition, considering she has already been denied the relief of anticipatory bail.

"Parties would also be required to inform the Court as to how, in view of the judgment of a Coordinate Bench in the case of Kuldeep Singh Vs. State of Punjab and others (CRM-M-12541-2026 decided on 06.05.2026), the present petition for quashing of the FIR would be maintainable/entertainable once the anticipatory bail petition filed by the petitioner has been dismissed," the Bench said.

The Court was referring to a recent High Court ruling which said that an accused cannot seek quashing of a First Information Report (FIR) immediately after he has been denied anticipatory bail unless there has been a material change in circumstances of the case,

In May, the Court had observed that the investigation in the case against Kishwar was at a nascent stage and several aspects remained to be unearthed, including the origin of the post, the individuals involved in "orchestrating it and the nature of the relationship and familiarity between the petitioner and the other persons concerned".

Seeking quashing of the FIR, Kishwar today said the video had been circulated by some users of X social media platform and she only responded to one of the tweets without naming anyone.

Her counsel added thereafter that there was a tweet by one Zubair Mohammed stating that her tweet had implied that it was the Prime Minister in the video. However, the Court was told that she immediately responded that the person in the video was not likely to be the Prime Minister.

She also said that subsequently, many other people re-tweeted the video clip and many people also came in her support stating that she had never stated anything about the Prime Minister.

In response, Chandigarh Police said the case is still at the stage of investigation and, therefore, her petition was liable to be dismissed. The matter will be heard next on August 25.

In a related development, a Chandigarh court on July 27 denied  bail to a Hyderabad-based man who was arrested on April 25 for allegedly sharing the same video and tagging AI chatbot Grok in his post.

Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and SS Narula with advocates Sidharth Grover, Sumedha, Vedika Dave, Vabhav Jain and Anmol represented Kishwar.

Public Prosecutor Manish Bansal, Additional Public Prosecutor Shubham Mangla with advocates Diksha Sharma and Arjun Garg appeared for Chandigarh Police.

[Read Order]