UP Court Registers Ex-IPS Officer's Complaint Case Against ANI's Smita Prakash Over Alleged 'False News' In ECI's Name

The Judicial Magistrate-III, Lucknow, in an order passed on September 11, 2025, observed:

"At this stage, without entering into the merits of territorial jurisdiction or sufficiency of grounds, the complaint is found to be in order procedurally. In view of the provisions of Chapter XV BNSS, the complaint is liable to be registered as a complaint case".

The Court accordingly directed:

"Let this case be registered as a Complaint Case. The Complainant is directed to appear on 26.09.2025 for the recording of his statement under oath".

Allegations in the Complaint

In his detailed complaint under Section 210 of the BNSS, Thakur has alleged that ANI, under Smita Prakash, repeatedly attributed statements to the Election Commission of India (ECI) that were neither issued on its official website nor published on its verified social media handles.

According to him, this amounted to the agency "relaying/issuing false news in the name of the Commission without any official back up of any kind".

The complaint cites several instances from August 2025, including X posts of ANI and news reports published before or without any official corroboration from the Election Commission.

#LucknowCourt directs registration of a complaint case on ex-IPS Officer Amitabh Thakur's plea against Smita Prakash. @Amitabhthakur's complaint alleges that @ANI has been seen relaying/issuing false news in the name of the Election Commission of India (@ECISVEEP).… pic.twitter.com/aEdkWvT4r3

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) September 20, 2025

In his plea, Thakur pointed to ANI's post of August 1, 2025, at 15:08 PM, which carried a statement purportedly from the ECI objecting to Rahul Gandhi's allegations of 'vote theft'.

The complainant adds that the Commission issued its official clarification only later, at 17:59 PM in Hindi and 19:55 PM in English, through its X handle, in which it labelled Gandhi's statement "misleading, baseless and threatening."

He further alleges that ANI has relayed many news items as being that of the ECI without any official facts or evidence to back them up, completely on its own.

The complaint plea adds that many such news items are neither on the Commission's official website nor on their social sites, nor presented through any official Press Conference or Press interaction, etc., and have only ANI's word to back up the given news.

"Thus ANI has been seen relaying/issuing false news in the name of Commission without any official back up of any kind…similarly the issue of leakage of news from ANI presents another aspect related with the functioning of ANI. It raises possibilities of illegal infiltration of ANI in the ECI system, to the extent of illegally procuring and then leaking insider information", the plea states.

On these facts, the complainant has averred that these alleged acts are prima-facie illegal and criminal acts, particularly under Section 318(2) BNS (Whoever cheats shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both) and 318(3) BNS (Whoever cheats with the knowledge that he is likely thereby to cause wrongful loss to a person whose interest in the transaction to which the cheating relates, he was bound, either by law, or by a legal contract, to protect, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both), and other provisions of law.

Thakur has added that while he could have sought an FIR through the police, there is every possibility of the Police being under influence of the Respondents because of various factors, and thus it was more appropriate to file a direct complaint case before the Court.

Thakur thus prayed the Court to take cognizance of the Complaint and take subsequent steps and actions against Prakash, “for the various acts of criminal malfeasance committed by her”.