2 min readGuwahatiApr 8, 2026 05:55 AM IST
The FIR under which Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera has been booked by the Assam Police includes charges under 14 sections of the BNS, including defamation, forgery, and criminal conspiracy.
On Sunday, Khera claimed in a press conference that Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s wife, Riniki Bhuyan, holds three passports. Khera also shared images of documents that allegedly showed properties in her name in the UAE and a company registered in the United States, which Khera claimed were not disclosed in Sarma’s election affidavit.
Following these claims, Bhuyan filed a complaint against Khera, based on which a case was registered with the Crime Branch of the Assam Police. After this, an Assam Police team turned up at Khera’s Delhi residence on Tuesday.
The Indian Express has learned that the charges in the FIR, which name Khera and “unknown others” as accused, include false statement in connection with an election, cheating, various charges related to forgery, criminal intimidation, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, statements conducing to breach of peace, defamation, and criminal conspiracy.
The complaint, based on which the FIR was registered, states that Bhuyan categorically and unequivocally denied “each and every allegation as false, fabricated, baseless and malicious”, and that “no such passports, citizenships, assets or documents have ever existed and has never been applied for, or issued in her name”.
The complaint further states that “the manner, tenor, timing and packaging of the said allegations unmistakably show that they were made with deliberate malice, criminal intent and with full knowledge of the grave consequences that such imputations would have” upon the complainant’s “reputation, dignity, safety and political prospect of her husband”.
The complaint also states that Khera’s conduct is not “protected political criticism”.
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“The present case concerns the deliberate publication of scandalous imputations against a private individual by attributing serious illegal and unethical conduct to her in the public domain without lawful proof and basis, and by circulating the same through a coordinated publicity exercise intended to secure maximum public consumption and damage,” it stated.
