Delhi Police Give Ashish Joshi FIR Copy on Eve of Court Hearing

The former bureaucrat said the police repeatedly failed to give him a copy of the FIR lodged against him ostensibly for his X post on CEC Gyanesh Kumar. The former bureaucrat said the police repeatedly failed to give him a copy of the FIR lodged against him ostensibly for his X post on CEC Gyanesh Kumar. New Delhi: After denying it to him for days and on the eve of a court hearing, the Delhi police on Monday (September 7) provided former civil servant Ashish Joshi with a copy of the FIR they lodged against him citing his remarks on the chief election commissioner, the ex-bureaucrat has said. Though the FIR is said to mention Joshi's X post calling for a 'Nuremberg-style trial' against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the unprecedented developments of the West Bengal special intensive revision, the retired bureaucrat has told The Wire that the police's questioning instead focussed on a post he made about Union home minister Amit Shah and home secretary Govind Mohan. Joshi wrote on X on Monday evening that the Delhi police's Special Cell had supplied him with a copy of the FIR. 'I will now exercise my legal remedies in accordance with Law,' he said. About an hour and a half later he referred to his August 28 post criticising Kumar. 'FIR is based on this Tweet. FYI!' Joshi wrote, quoting his post calling for a re-election in Bengal and saying that Kumar 'cannot escape' a 'Nuremberg style trial'. In a petition before the Patiala House court in New Delhi, Joshi complained that the police not only failed to supply him with a copy of the FIR when he repeatedly asked for it during his interrogation on September 2, but also did not respond to his representations the next day, per LiveLaw. Advertisement This failure, Joshi said, has rendered him 'unable to ascertain the precise nature of the allegations against him' and 'directly [infringed]' upon his right to seek legal redress, LiveLaw reported. The ex-bureaucrat argued that his right to a copy of the FIR against him stems from Article 21 of the Constitution, which pertains to the right to life and personal liberty, and is not a matter of the police's discretion, the outlet wrote. It said judge Mridul Shama was likely to hear his petition on Tuesday. Advertisement Earlier, a friend of Joshi's told The Wire that the plainclothed police officers who detained him from Nehru Park in Delhi cited his X post 'against the home minister' when asking him to accompany them. Later, Joshi said the questionnaire and follow-up questions he was administered at the Special Cell's premises in New Friends Colony also focussed on this post, in which he had claimed that a 'massive showdown' took place between Shah and Mohan over the police crackdown on youth protesters in the capital. This post is not available in India as X has withheld it for Indian audiences 'due to a legal demand'. Advertisement He also said he was informed on September 2 that the FIR invokes BNS section 192 – which deals with 'wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot' – against him. Advertisement A vocal critic of the Narendra Modi government, Joshi joined the Indian Post and Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service in 1992 and retired on March 31, 2026 as an additional secretary-ranked officer in the Union government. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.