Former civil servants object to the ten-hour questioning of a retired officer
A statement from 108 members of the Constitutional Conduct Group says Ashish Joshi was not given a copy of the FIR and his wife was not told where he was. He received it five days later.
A group of 108 former civil servants has issued an open statement objecting to the questioning of retired officer Ashish Joshi by the Delhi Police Special Cell, which held him for around ten hours on 2 September over his social media posts.
The statement, from the Constitutional Conduct Group, says its signatories are "deeply shocked and dismayed by the blatant display of unconstitutional power by the Delhi Police in the matter of the custodial interrogation" of Joshi.
Copies have been sent to the Union Home Minister, the Union Home Secretary, the Lieutenant Governor of the NCT of Delhi and the Commissioner of Police, Delhi.
What happened
Joshi, a 1992-batch officer of the Indian Post and Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service, was picked up during his morning walk. He was released in the evening, at around 7.30pm.
The procedural objections
The statement raises specific points about how the detention was handled rather than about the investigation itself.
It says Joshi was not provided a copy of the FIR against him, and that his wife was not informed of his whereabouts.
He received a copy of the FIR only on 7 September — five days later — and after he approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate.
Those are the two safeguards the group is pressing on: knowing the accusation, and someone being told where a person has been taken. Both are procedural rather than substantive, which is what makes them checkable.
The posts
Some of Joshi's social media posts have been critical of the current administration. He had recently posted about the CJP protests.
One post, later deleted, described what he called civil services grapevine: a showdown between the Home Minister and the Home Secretary over action against students at Jantar Mantar, resistance from junior officers in the field, and an extension granted to the Home Secretary over the Home Minister's objection. It ended by inviting citizens to read between the lines.
That account is Joshi's, posted on his own social media and since removed. Neither the Home Ministry nor the Delhi Police has addressed its substance in this report.
An earlier suspension
Joshi was suspended in 2019 for allegedly violating civil service conduct rules, after posting on X seeking legal action against Kapil Mishra, then a rebel AAP MLA, over a video Mishra had uploaded.
Who the group is
The Constitutional Conduct Group is a collective of retired civil servants. Its practice is to issue open statements, addressed to serving officials, on matters its members consider to raise constitutional questions.
The 108 signatures are the weight the statement carries; the group holds no formal authority and its statements have no legal effect.
The other side
Delhi Police have not commented on the statement in this account, and the contents of the FIR have not been reported.
The force questioned Joshi and released him the same day without arrest. Whether the investigation continues, and what offence is alleged, is not on the public record here.
What is being contested
The disagreement is not over whether police may question a retired officer about his posts. It is over whether the manner in which it was done — no FIR copy at the time, no notification to his family, ten hours — met the requirements that attach to detention.
That question sits with the authorities the statement has been sent to, and, given that Joshi has already approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate, potentially with a court.
