A Delhi court has issued a notice to comedian Kunal Kamra on a plea seeking the registration of an FIR against him for his jokes on Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde.
Additional sessions judge Vandana issued the order while hearing the revision petition filed by Sandeep Chaudhary, the Delhi chief of the Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena.
“Let notice be issued to the respondent (Kamra) on filing of process fee/registered cover (PF/RC),” the sessions court said and listed the matter for further hearing on March 20.
The petition was filed in connection with Kamra’s controversial stand-up act lampooning Shinde over the split in the Shiv Sena. A video of the show, which ricocheted around the Internet in March last year, had sparked a massive controversy.
Chaudhary, who has challenged a magistrate court’s order rejecting his plea seeking an FIR against Kamra, alleged that the video contained provocative language and terminology, including “gaddar (traitor)” and “dalbadlu (turncoat)”, among others.
According to Chaudhary, the video deliberately distorts facts, with the intent or likelihood to stir enmity and ill-will between political, regional and ideological groups.
The petitioner has sought to book Kamra on charges of promoting enmity, hatred, or ill-will between groups, alleging that his acts were performed with intent, or in an attempt, to cause mischief, disorder, hatred, and public provocation between political, regional, and ideological factions.
The magistrate’s court had dismissed Chaudhary’s petition on September 15, 2025, observing that it was devoid of merit both in law and in fact.
The magistrate’s court had noted that Kamra had already been granted anticipatory bail by Bombay High Court on an FIR filed against him in Mumbai, and the registration of a second FIR in Delhi with respect to the same video and over the same core allegations was not permissible under law.
The court had also observed that the allegations in Chaudhary’s complaint did not pass muster as the video, though distasteful, did not contain a call to violence nor exhibit an imminent tendency to disturb public tranquillity to cause or promote enmity, hatred or ill-will among different groups.
“Democracy does not tremble because of dissent; it trembles only when dissent is silenced. It is the bounden duty of this Court to ensure that the law is not invoked as a tool to stifle voices, however uncomfortable they may sound to some,” the magistrate’s court had said in its order.