One of my clients recently had a case which I am explaining below and if you are stuck in such similar situation, here is what to do.
Note: Due to attorney-client privilege, I cannot disclose complete case details or identify the actual parties involved. However, I am sharing the essential facts and legal approach so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can understand the available solutions and legal remedies.
TL;DR: Yes, you can file a complaint over obscene or abusive WhatsApp messages, and an FIR can be registered. Which sections apply depends entirely on the exact words used, whether your religion was targeted, and whether any threat was made. Plain obscenity is not automatically criminal defamation, so the complaint must be built around the right offences.
Aditya Rane was in a lecture when his phone started buzzing. A batchmates' WhatsApp group, about sixty members, had drifted from exam talk into politics. He said something mildly critical. A student he barely knew, Kunal Deshpande, replied with a message that was obscene, and then one that went after his religion. Rane took screenshots. Then he sat in the hostel corridor and did nothing for a few hours. That night he had a panic attack. His roommate took him to a private hospital in Dhantoli, where he was seen in the emergency department past midnight. The next morning he called the local police station. The officer on duty said nothing would move until after 2 pm the following day. He waited. Nobody called him back. We only have his version of events, and a group argument looks very different from the other side. But he approached the Chamber of Advocate Sudhir Rao, and the office put togetherthe office put together a written complaint, an exported copy of the chat with the sender's number visible on every screen, and a covering note that took each message one at a time and said what it was. That part took an afternoon. Deciding which offences the messages actually made out took longer, because the answer changed depending on which line you read.
What follows is the legal part of that exercise, stripped of the names.
Can you file an FIR for obscene or abusive WhatsApp messages?
Usually yes, provided the messages cross a line that the criminal law recognises. "Abusive" in ordinary speech covers a lot of ground the criminal law does not touch. A message can be rude, mocking and deeply unpleasant and still amount to no offence at all. That is the first thing to understand before you spend a day at a police station.
The second thing is that these complaints are usually built out of three or four separate offences stacked together, not one. Whether the stack holds depends on the exact words, and sometimes on one word.
- Cognizable offences let the police register an FIR and investigate on their own.
- Non-cognizable offences — defamation is the main one here — need a Magistrate's order before the police can act.
- The exact words matter more than the tone. A threat, a religious slur and a piece of vulgar abuse attract completely different sections.
- Screenshots alone are weak evidence. The original device and an exported chat are what a court will want.
- You do not have to travel to the police station in whose area the sender lives.
What the police are supposed to do
Information about a cognizable offence must be recorded. Under the BNSS 2023, information can be given orally or by electronic communication, though if it is given electronically the person giving it has to sign it within three days. You are entitled to a free copy of the FIR.
You can give the information at any police station, not only the one with jurisdiction. If the offence did not happen in that station's area, the practice — usually called a zero FIR — is that they register it and transfer it to the station that has jurisdiction. In practice, officers sometimes push back. Ask for the station diary entry if they refuse.
The twenty-four-hour silence
Rane was told to come back the next afternoon and then heard nothing. That is common and it is not necessarily obstruction. The honest reading is that a complaint about a hostel group chat does not sit high on anyone's list. It also means that if nothing moves, the next step is a written reminder, and after that a route through the Magistrate.
Which sections apply to obscene or abusive WhatsApp messages
Here is the map, in the order a complaint is normally drafted.
1. Obscenity in electronic form — Section 67, IT Act
This is the provision that fits most cleanly. Publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form is punishable with imprisonment up to three years and a fine on a first conviction, and up to five years and a higher fine on a second. The word "transmits" is what makes it useful: it does not require the material to be displayed in a public place. If the message was sent to you, it was transmitted.
Section 67A covers material containing a sexually explicit act. It is a harder bar and usually does not apply to plain vulgar abuse.
2. Obscene acts and publications — BNS Sections 294 and 296
Section 296 of the BNS deals with obscene acts and songs, and Section 294 with the sale and distribution of obscene material. Section 296 is the one most often cited, and it is also the one most often contested, because it speaks of a public place. Whether a WhatsApp group of sixty people is a public place has been argued both ways in Indian courts and the answers are not uniform. Some judges have taken the view that a private group is private. Others have looked at the number of members and the absence of any expectation of confidentiality.
If your complaint rests only on Section 296, expect that argument. If it also rests on Section 67 of the IT Act, the argument matters much less.
3. If your religion was targeted — BNS Sections 196 and 299
Two distinct offences sit here. Section 299 punishes deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of a class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs. Section 196 is the heavier one: words or representations promoting disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between religious groups, punishable with up to three years, and up to five if done in a place of worship.
These are different questions. Insulting a religion is Section 299. Promoting hostility between communities is Section 196. A single abusive message may satisfy one and not the other, which is why the drafting has to quote the message rather than summarise it.
4. If there was a threat — Section 351, BNS
Criminal intimidation covers threats of injury to a person, reputation or property. A message saying "you will regret this" is not the same as one saying "I will find you after the exam". The first is noise. The second is a cognizable offence carrying up to seven years if the threat is of death or grievous hurt. Whether a threat was made is a question of fact, and it is decided on the words used.
5. Abuse intended to provoke a breach of the peace — Section 352, BNS
This is the section that catches intentional insult. It is cognizable, and it is routinely added alongside the obscenity offences. It carries up to two years. It applies where the insult was intended to provoke a breach of the peace — which is why a message sent to wound someone in an argument usually fits and a clumsy joke usually does not.
6. Defamation — Section 356, BNS
This is where a lot of people go wrong. Defamation requires an imputation made with intent to harm reputation. It is a non-cognizable, bailable offence. The police will not register an FIR on defamation alone; you have to go to a Magistrate. And the very public nature of a group chat cuts both ways: an imputation about your character made to sixty people may be more damaging, but statements about a person's public conduct attract protection, and opinions are treated differently from statements of fact.
If your complaint is really "he insulted me", Section 352 is usually the stronger hook, and it is the one the police can act on directly.
Why the religion point and the abuse point are argued separately
Because they fail separately. A complaint that leads with "the messages were obscene and also communal" invites the reply that the messages were neither. A complaint that quotes each message and assigns it to a section does not.
Preserve the evidence before you do anything else
Do not delete the chat. Do not clear your phone. Do not leave the group, because leaving can affect what you can show.
- Export the chat from WhatsApp with media, and keep the exported file.
- Take screenshots that clearly show the sender's number, not just their display name.
- Keep the handset you received the messages on. Do not factory reset it or trade it in.
- Note the group name, the number of members, and who the admins are.
- Write down the date and time of each message you are complaining about.
On the technical side, when an electronic record is produced in court, a certificate is generally required under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. Courts have taken different views on how strictly that applies to WhatsApp chats produced in a trial, and the position is still being worked out. Keep the original device. It is the simplest way to avoid the argument entirely.
How long do you have
The BNSS sets outer limits for taking cognizance. For offences punishable with imprisonment of up to three years, the limit is three years from the date of the offence. For offences punishable only with a fine, or with imprisonment up to one year, it is one year. Several of the offences above carry a maximum of three years, so three years is the working deadline. It is not a reason to wait. Messages get deleted, phones get replaced, and people leave the country.
What to send us, and what happens first
Send the exported chat file, the screenshots, the sender's phone number, and a two-line note saying what happened and when. Do not write an essay. If an FIR already exists, send the FIR number and a photograph of the first page.
What the office does first is read the messages and tell you whether there is an offence on these facts. Sometimes there is not. Vulgar language between two people who were both shouting is often not a criminal matter, and if you sent messages of your own in that group, a counter-complaint is a real possibility that has to be weighed before anything is filed. That assessment is worth doing before a complaint goes in, not after.
If there is a case, the usual sequence is a written complaint to the station, a follow-up if there is no response, and an application to the jurisdictional Magistrate under Section 175(3) of the BNSS if the police still do nothing. You can also file on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, which creates a record even where no FIR follows.
You can reach the chamber through our contact page or book a consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can police refuse to register an FIR because it was only a WhatsApp message?
They should not refuse on that ground alone. The medium does not decide whether an offence was committed. They may refuse if the messages, read as a whole, do not make out any cognizable offence , or if the only offence the messages disclose is defamation, which needs a Magistrate's order. If they say no, ask for the refusal in writing and note the station diary entry. That paper is what you carry to the Magistrate.
Is a WhatsApp group a "public place" for an obscenity case?
There is no settled answer, and anyone who tells you there is one is guessing. The argument for treating it as public runs on the size of the group and the fact that nobody in it expects the content to stay private. The argument against runs on it being a closed set of known members. Different courts have looked at this differently. What resolves it in practice is stacking Section 67 of the IT Act, which does not turn on the group being public, alongside the obscenity sections rather than relying on them alone.
I sent abusive messages back. Does that hurt my complaint?
It can, and it is the first thing the other side will point at. Section 352 of the BNS is broadly drafted and symmetrical. If you replied with an intentional insult aimed at provoking a breach of the peace, you have exposed yourself to the same section you are invoking. Provocation also matters as a defence. This is not a reason to drop the complaint. It is a reason to read your own messages honestly before the police do, and to decide whether the obscenity or the religious slur aimed at you is severe enough to justify the exposure.
Can I complain from a different city or state?
Yes. You can give the information at a police station near you, which should register it as a zero FIR and transfer it. You can also file through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, which is not tied to where you live. On the question of which Magistrate can take a complaint about online messages, courts have taken more than one view, and it has been argued that both the place the message was sent from and the place it was received can have jurisdiction. If you are filing before a Magistrate, that point should be settled before you draft, not after.
How long will the whole thing take?
Nobody can give you a date. Registering the FIR is usually a matter of days if it is registered at all, though Rane's own experience of being told to wait and then hearing nothing was not unusual. An investigation into a cognizable offence commonly runs for months. If charges are framed and the matter goes to trial, you are looking at years, and you will be a witness in your own complaint. Most of these cases do not reach a verdict — they end in a chargesheet that goes nowhere, a compromise, or a quiet closure. That is worth knowing before you start.
Disclaimer: This article is general information about Indian law and is not legal advice on your own situation. Every complaint turns on its own facts, and no outcome can be promised.
If you are holding a chat you cannot unsee, the thing that decides whether it becomes a case is the drafting. Send the exported chat, the screenshots with the sender's number, and two lines on what happened and when. Reach the chamber through our contact page or book a consultation.
Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India
Facing a similar matter? Speak to a criminal advocate in Delhi — Advocate Sudhir Rao appears in bail, trial and appellate matters before the Delhi District Courts, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India.