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New Delhi: A Delhi Court on Wednesday, April 22, ordered the registration of a first information report against commentator Abhijit Iyer Mitra after a complaint was filed by news platform Newslaundry’s Editorial Director Manisha Pande, accusing him of using sexually abusive language against her and other women journalists on social media.

District Saket Court’s Judicial Magistrate First Class Bhanu Pratap Singh passed the order while hearing the plea filed by Pande.

Posts count as ‘sexually coloured remarks’: Court

The court noted that Mitra’s posts count as “sexually coloured remarks” and were “prima facie” intended to insult the modesty of the complainant, who was also named in the post.

The magistrate said that the “police investigation is necessary as the offence has been committed in cyberspace on the platform ‘X’.”

A probe is needed to verify the user account and to trace and recover the device from which the posts were written and published.

“The court is also of the view that the Action Taken Report which was filed by PSI Ombir in the present case is not satisfactory as the above stated tweets were not considered in the report,” the court observed.

Mitra could be booked under section 75(3) (sexually coloured remarks) and 79 (outraging modesty of women) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the court said.

Women journos move HC

In April 2025, Pande, along with eight other women journalists from Newslaundry, moved the Delhi High Court seeking an injunction and Rs 2 crore in damages from Mitra for his “derogatory, false, malicious and unsubstantiated allegations” published on X.

Mitra had posted vulgar remarks earlier that year, addressing the women journalists as “prostitutes” and their workplace as “brothel.”