New Delhi: The Delhi Police’s Special Cell has contacted social media platform X to retrieve electronic evidence for a case against senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
The FIR in the case alleges the circulation of a doctored video of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which purportedly showed him criticising India over its internal affairs and oil purchases. Bhushan had allegedly shared the video with a comment on 3 November.
“A tight slap by the Russian Foreign Minister for India. What kind of advice was Jaishankar giving to Russia?” Bhushan’s post read.
Following this, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issued a fact check on X with a screenshot of Bhushan’s post.
“The video of the Russian Foreign Minister being used in this post is fake!” the MEA post read.
Fake Alert!!! 🚨🚨🚨
The video of the Russian Foreign Minister being used in this post is fake! pic.twitter.com/jpEX6qu19p
— MEA FactCheck (@MEAFactCheck) November 3, 2026
Subsequently the Delhi Police’s Special Cell registered an FIR against Bhushan. “He was seen sharing a fabricated, deep fake video which not only undermines India but also creates a wrong image internationally,” said a senior officer.
The police registered an FIR subsequently. “On 3 November, during a cyber patrolling, it came to notice that the social media handle @thequotesnews has claimed that a purported doctored video of the Russian Foreign Minister, hostile to India, was shared by Prashant Bhushan’s handle @pbhushan1,” Delhi Police said.
Speaking to ThePrint, Bhushan said he has not yet been informed by the Delhi Police about the FIR. “I got to know from social media that there is an FIR against me but so far I have not received any communication from the police,” said Bhushan. He added that he has not attempted to get a copy of the FIR since the police have not contacted him yet.
“The BJP at this point is itching to do something against me. So these are ways they are trying to get me, but I am not worried about such cases,” said Bhushan.
He told ThePrint that on 3 November when he received the video, he first asked Grok (X’s AI chatbot) about the veracity of the video. “Grok did not flag anything so I shared the video on X. Later a friend pointed out that the video was a deep fake so I immediately deleted the post,” said Bhushan.
Bhushan has been booked under several sections of the BNS that deal with forgery intended to harm a person’s reputation, the circulation of statements or false information likely to incite one class or community to commit an offence against another, defamation, fraudulent or dishonest use of a forged document or electronic record as genuine and several sections of the IT Act that deal with identity theft, including the fraudulent or dishonest use of another person’s electronic signature, password or other unique identification feature.
“We will record Bhushan’s statement and check his devices soon. The team is investigating the matter,” the police officer said.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)