Gujarat High Court Quashes FIR Against Lawyer, Says Impossible To Believe He Extorted Traffic Policeman During Facebook Live-Stream

The Gujarat High Court quashed an extortion FIR against a lawyer after noting that it was impossible to believe that the petitioner who was live-streaming on Facebook at the time of the alleged incident would also simultaneously extort money from traffic personnel at the exact moment. [2026 LiveLaw (Guj) 285]

The court said that the FIR against the petitioner was "counter blast" to the attempt to murder FIR lodged by the petitioner against the traffic personnel for assaulting the lawyer when confronted with allegations of corruption. 

The petitioner claimed that he is a social activist who had gone to Lasana Main Road to expose an illegal money collection racket being run by private persons in civil dress alongside police and TRB personnel sitting in a private rickshaw. He claimed that while the Petitioner was live-streaming this illegal activity on his public Facebook page, a TRB (traffic brigade) Supervisor rushed out with a heavy wooden log and assaulted the Petitioner.

He claimed that the injuries were so severe he had to be rushed to the hospital. He claimed that the FIR lodged against him was a concocted counter-blast created by the police to insulate corrupt officers from criminal liability and to coerce the Petitioner into dropping the prosecution under Section 307 IPC.

Meanwhile the State argued that the petitioner abused public servants, disrupted traffic regulation duty, tore the uniform of a TRB Supervisor, and demanded illegal gratification under threat of viral videos. It was alleged that there is ample material to point out that the complainant was assigned duty at the place of offence and there is no question of false implication of the petitioner.

Justice PM Raval observed that as per the facts when the petitioner was live-streaming on Facebook, TRB personnel assaulted him with a heavy wooden weapon, inflicting severe injuries on his head and limbs, requiring emergency hospitalization; pursuant to which petitioner lodged an FIR for attempt to murder against police/TRB personnel.

Thereafter the FIR against petitioner was lodged under various provisions including extortion, Voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty, Assault to deter public servant from doing duty. 

The court said:

"It is almost impossible to believe that an advocate live streaming an event on Facebook in full public view would simultaneously attempt to commit extortion (Section 385 IPC) and physical assault on police personnel (Section 332/353 IPC). The narrative that the Petitioner demanded ₹1,000 per day from traffic personnel while simultaneously broadcasting the scene live is inherently improbable and absurd under Category (5) of Bhajan Lal.

This Court is satisfied that the impugned FIR was brought as a classic counter-blast and an abuse of police authority to create a leverage/settlement against the grave charge of attempt to murder (Section 307 IPC) registered against the TRB/police personnel"

On the allegation Petitioner demanded ₹30,000 per month from the TRB Supervisor over threat of making videos viral, the court said that the petitioner was conducting a public live stream directly on Facebook at that exact moment.

It said that an activist lawyer broadcasting live to thousands of online viewers in broad daylight "cannot, by any stretch of human logic, be simultaneously conducting a secret extortion racket". 

The court further said that exposing official corruption or public misconduct on social media does not constitute putting an officer in unlawful "fear of injury" under Section 385 IPC.

The court further said that the prosecution's allegation that Petitioner had been demanding money for 15–20 days prior to the incident, which was never reported to any higher authority or written down until after the police officers brutally assaulted the Petitioner, was an afterthought. 

"This demonstrates that the extortion charge was engineered solely to meet the threshold of a non-bailable offence to counter the Petitioner's prosecution," the court said. 

With respect to invocation of SCST Act against the petitioner over allegations of using casteist slurs against the personnel, the court said that the FIR revealed "vague utterance" attributed to the Petitioner which was added as a generalized narrative without specific corroborative detail.

"Sweeping and omnibus allegations of caste slurs inserted to invoke stringent provisions of the Atrocities Act, particularly in the backdrop of a pre-existing dispute or counter-blast, cannot be allowed to stand. The invocation of the Atrocities Act in the present case appears to have been used purely as an "umbrella shield" to insulate the police personnel from quashing proceedings," the court said. 

It said that to invoke Section 3(1)(r) of SCST Act, the alleged intentional insult or intimidation must be committed with the explicit mens rea to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe specifically because of their caste identity, and such act must occur in a place within "public view."

The court held that a routine dispute or general altercation cannot be wrapped under the umbrella of the Atrocities Act unless the foundational element of targeted, caste-based humiliation is established.

The court said that the altercation broke out due to the Petitioner video recording the traffic checking operations and alleging administrative corruption ("wrongly harassing and looting people").

It said that the alleged utterance regarding the complainant's Adivasi background is "decoupled from any foundational caste-centric malice" as it was a general, vague assertion super-imposed onto a situational argument regarding traffic enforcement.

The plea was allowed and FIR was quashed.