M.P. High Court slams police over contents of FIR against Vijay Shah; to monitor probe

Madhya Pradesh High Court criticizes State Police for incomplete FIR against Minister Vijay Shah over inflammatory remarks.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday (May 15, 2025) slammed the State Police over the contents of the FIR filed against Cabinet Minister Vijay Shah on its directions after his inflammatory remarks about Colonel Sofia Qureshi. 

Taking it up as the first matter of the day, a Division Bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Anuradha Malik ask why the viral speech made by the Minister on May 12 was not part of the FIR, and said that it will monitor the police investigation in the case.

Also read: Supreme Court agrees to hear on May 16 M.P. Minister Vijay Shah’s plea against High Court order

An FIR was filed against Mr. Shah right before midnight on Wednesday (May 14, 2025) at Manpur police station in Indore Rural district under BNS Sections 152, 196 (1)(b), and 197 (1)(c), in compliance with the High Court’s directions of lodging the FIR within four hours.

Justice Sreedharan, however, expressed the court’s dissatisfaction on the contents of the FIR and said that it was “vulnerable to being quashed” in the absence of the description of the speech.

“The FIR is brief. However the briefness of FIR is not the problem. Having gone through the FIR in its entirety there is not a single mention of the actions of the suspect which would satisfy the ingredients of offences registered which have been registered against him,” the court noted.

As Advocate General Prashant Singh argued that the entire May 14 order of the court had been annexed with the FIR, the court said that it did not suffice.