For IAS Ashish Joshi approaches Patiala Court to get a copy of the FIR registered against him

New Delhi

By our legal correspondent

In a dramatic turn to the alleged harassment of a former top bureaucrat over his social media posts, retired Additional Secretary-rank officer Ashish Joshi has approached the Patiala House Court seeking a copy of the FIR lodged against him by the Delhi Police Special Cell and the contents thereof.

Joshi, a 1992-batch officer of the Indian Post and Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service (IP&TAFS) who retired on March 31, 2026 as Additional Secretary in the Government of India and Controller of Communication in Department of Telecommunications, was picked up by sleuths of the Special Cell from Nehru Park on Wednesday morning while he was on his morning walk and interrogated for nearly nine to ten hours before being dropped back home at RK Puram in the evening.

According to his plea and eyewitness account given by his friend who was sitting with him under the Lenin statue at Nehru Park around 8:40 am, two plainclothes men carrying a folder introduced themselves as officers of the Special Cell, New Friends Colony and told him, “You have tweeted against the Home Minister and we have been ordered by DCP Chandra and ACP Kushwaha to take you in for interrogation.” He was not allowed to be questioned at the park itself on the ground that his location was traced and he had to be taken to the Counter Intelligence (CI) unit office in New Friends Colony. His phone was switched off and his family was not informed for hours, a point Joshi raised saying informing family is a legal mandate not a courtesy.

The case, according to Delhi Police sources, was registered two days before his detention by the CI unit under Section 192 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita which deals with wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot, a cognizable and bailable offence. Police claimed Joshi was called for routine questioning and was bound down after cooperation.

While the official summons cited his August 26 post on X regarding West Bengal elections and Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls where he wrote “Chief Election Commissioner awaits Nuremberg style trial” and questioned democratic process, Joshi has alleged that 60-70 percent of the interrogation revolved around his earlier post dated August 12-13 about a purported rift between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Home Secretary Govind Mohan.

In that post, which was later withheld in India by X on government order, Joshi had claimed as part of ‘Civil Services Grapevine’ that there was a “massive showdown between Home Minister and Home Secretary over police action against students at Jantar Mantar” and that the Home Secretary was against severe police action and junior field officers were resisting. Police, according to Joshi, were keen to know the source of his information and asked for list of all persons he had spoken to between August 11 and 12 on calls, WhatsApp and even Signal, which included names of former colleagues, former Delhi LG Najeeb Jung, former MP Sandeep Dikshit and several bureaucrats. Joshi refused to reveal sources saying it would be unethical and intellectually dishonest.

Joshi, who is known as a vocal critic of the Modi government on social media with handle @bismil_prasad and was suspended in 2019 by Department of Telecommunications for demanding action against then rebel AAP MLA Kapil Mishra over a video, posted at 7:29 pm on September 2 after being released – “Just got back home. Delhi Special Cell dropped me home. Details later.”

Now in his application before the Patiala House Court, Joshi has contended that he was detained arbitrarily without prior notice, that the FIR has not been provided to him despite repeated requests and that he has a right to know the exact allegations, sections invoked and the tweets attributed to him. The matter is expected to come up for hearing this week.

The incident has sparked widespread condemnation from opposition leaders including Sandeep Dikshit and Supriya Shrinate who asked whether the government was so uncomfortable with social media posts that it had to pick up a retired officer during morning walk in shorts. Delhi Police is yet to issue a formal statement on the contents of the FIR.