The post I saved says Abhijeet Dipke has come out in support of Ruchika Singh and claims that abusing someone is not a crime, that no law permits an FIR merely for abuse, and that the correct response is to counsel the person politely. That paraphrase is doing a lot of work. What Dipke actually said in his video message(reported by Siasat) was narrower and more political: if profanity invites police action, when will a case be registered against the BJP IT Cell, and what about Ramesh Bidhuri's 2023 slurs in the Lok Sabha against Danish Ali. CJP's spokesperson Saurav Das put the legal argument on the record separately, telling News9 that the language "may be wrong" but the aggrieved person is free to pursue civil and criminal defamation, and that using criminal machinery against protesters is condemnable.
So there are three documents in play and none of them is the tweet: the FIR registered on 29th July, 2026, the sections listed in it, and the case law on those sections. I read all three because the answer changes depending on which limb you look at, and because nobody quoting this on X has bothered to name a section number.
Is abusing someone a crime?
Under BNS 352, the successor to IPC 504, abuse alone is not enough. The section needs an intentional insult, communicated to a person, of a nature likely to provoke that person to break the peace or commit an offence. The Supreme Court laid this out in Mohammad Wajid v. State of U.P.(8th August, 2023): mere abuse, discourtesy, rudeness or insolence may not amount to intentional insult unless the words are likely to incite a breach of the peace, and the test is the ordinary effect of the words rather than the complainant's own temperament. The Allahabad High Court applied the same in Dhirendra v. State of U.P.(2024).
Read against that test, the 352 charge here is weak in a specific way that has nothing to do with politics. The person allegedly insulted was not present at Jantar Mantar, did not hear the words, and has not complained. The provocation limb has no one to provoke. BNS 352 is also non-cognizable in the First Schedule, so police normally need a magistrate's order before investigating, and the maximum sentence is two years. Dipke's side is on solid ground on this section, and that is the part of the post's claim which holds up.
Then how was an FIR registered at all?
By a third party, in another state. A zero FIR was registered on 29th July, 2026 at Expressway police station in Noida on the complaint of Smriti Singh, a Supreme Court advocate resident in Vasundhara, Ghaziabad, and then transferred to Parliament Street police station in Delhi because the alleged act happened at Jantar Mantar(ThePrint, Tribune, Free Press Journal). The complainant told TOI she identified the accused by going through social media and speaking to friends.
That pathway matters more than the gaali does. On 28th July, 2026 the Supreme Court bench headed by CJI Surya Kant barred coercive action against student protesters for the time being, ordered release of detained under-18s without criminal antecedents, and directed preservation of electronic evidence. On 30th July, Delhi's Home Minister Ashish Sood announced no adverse legal action against CJP protesters without prior criminal records. A private complainant filing in Noida and having the case walked into Delhi routes around both of those, and neither the court's order nor the state's assurance has been reported as invoked in this case.
"Hurt the dignity of the constitutional post"
That phrase is from the FIR itself, as quoted by ThePrint, and there is no offence by that name in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Insulting a constitutional post is not a crime in India. The FIR is describing a political injury and then reaching for whatever sections are nearest to hand, which is the oldest move in speech policing and the reason section numbers deserve reading rather than headlines.
The defamation count, BNS 356(1), runs into a procedural wall on the same page. BNSS section 222(1) bars a court from taking cognizance of defamation except on a complaint by the person aggrieved. Section 222(2) creates a special route through a public prosecutor for the President, Vice President, Governors, and Union and State ministers, which requires sanction. Nothing in the reporting shows any such sanction here. An unconnected advocate in Ghaziabad is not the person aggrieved, and defamation is non-cognizable in any case.
What about BNS 353(1)?
This is the section that told me the FIR was drafted for effect. BNS 353(1)(a) concerns statements, rumours or false information intended or likely to cause an officer, soldier, sailor or airman to mutiny or fail in his duty. The other limbs cover fear or alarm inducing offences against the State or public tranquillity, and incitement of enmity between classes or communities. Applying the mutiny limb to expletives about NEET-UG at a protest is not a close call, it is over-charging.
The section that fits public swearing is BNS 296, obscene words in or near a public place to the annoyance of others. Maximum three months or a fine of one thousand rupees. Cognizable, bailable, petty. It was not charged. A 25-year-old who runs a salon in Sector 168 is instead facing a defamation count she cannot legally be charged with by this complainant, a public mischief count aimed at soldiers, and an insult count that needs someone who was actually there to be provoked. The gap between the real legal exposure and the volume of the outrage is roughly the gap between a thousand rupee fine and a national news cycle.
"If it's not a crime, argue it in court and the case will be quashed"
One reply under the post made this argument, and it deserves a straight answer rather than dismissal, because it is the only serious point in that thread. In Imran Pratapgadhi v. State of Gujarat(28th March, 2025) the Supreme Court quashed an FIR over a poem, held that Article 19(2) restrictions must be reasonable and not fanciful, faulted police for mechanical FIR registration, and read a preliminary-inquiry duty into BNSS section 173(3) for speech offences punishable between three and seven years. On paper that is exactly the remedy the reply describes.
The courts have also gone the other way, repeatedly, on this particular target. In December 2025 a bench headed by CJI Surya Kant refused to quash an FIR against Gurudath Shetty of Bengaluru over an anti-Modi post, saying he had brazenly abused free speech(Deccan Herald). The Supreme Court declined relief to Pawan Khera over his "Narendra Gautam Das Modi" remark. In May 2026 the Allahabad High Court refused to quash a case against two men over Facebook posts about the PM and the RSS(Bar & Bench). In August 2025 police in Darbhanga arrested a 20-year-old for abusing the PM during Rahul Gandhi's yatra. Quashing exists and is not distributed evenly, and the person waiting for it spends months in the machinery either way. That is the cost the reply is pricing at zero.
The question the record cannot answer
Whether a magistrate has ordered investigation into the non-cognizable parts of this FIR, which is the one fact that decides if the police are even lawfully seized of it. BNSS section 174(2) is the gate for that, and no report I could find states whether it has been passed. I also could not find Ruchika Singh's own words, any counsel on record for her, any anticipatory bail plea, or any notice under BNSS section 35. Police say she is untraceable and no arrest has been made, per Free Press Journal, but untraceable and not yet served are different things and the reporting does not separate them. Similarly, no BJP office-bearer, ministry or commission is documented as having formally demanded action here. Absent that, the case rests entirely on a private complainant who identified a stranger from social media, and there is no public record of how the sections were chosen or by whom.
As such, one correction to how the bookmarked post is being read. Dipke did not argue that abuse should go unanswered, and the paraphrase about polite counselling is not sourced to him; Das's actual position was that the remedy sits in defamation law with the aggrieved person, which is what BNSS section 222 already says. The claim that no law permits an FIR for abuse is wrong as stated, BNS 296 exists and covers exactly this. The claim that these three sections do not fit is right, and the person who could end it in a day is the magistrate whose order nobody has published.