A sharp political salvo landed on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, when Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju accused senior Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan of deliberately spreading fake news to damage India's constitutional institutions — and demanded accountability for a previous unretracted claim that judges and ministers had flown to London to play badminton.

The Badminton Allegation That Never Came With an Apology

Rijiju's broadside singled out a specific, earlier episode: Bhushan had, the minister alleged, circulated a claim that judges and ministers had travelled to London to play badminton — a charge Rijiju says was false and for which no apology was ever offered. 'It's part of the conspiracy to destroy India's image and constitutional institutions of India,' Rijiju wrote, framing the incident not as a one-off but as part of a deliberate, recurring pattern.

The research record flags the badminton-related claim as unverified from public record, so the precise original circumstances of that allegation cannot be independently confirmed here. What is documented is that Rijiju treats it as an established prior offence — foundation for his current accusation of ongoing fake-news circulation.

Rijiju vs. Bhushan: A Long-Running Institutional Battle

Prashant Bhushan has spent decades at the intersection of judicial activism and public controversy. His 2020 contempt-of-court conviction by the Supreme Court — for tweets critical of the Chief Justice and the court itself — was a landmark moment that sharpened national debate on the limits of judicial criticism. That case established a precedent: inflammatory or unsubstantiated claims about judicial conduct can carry legal consequence.

Rijiju is no stranger to that front. As Law Minister in a previous cabinet role, he had clashed with the judiciary over the collegium system for judicial appointments, making him a consistent voice for executive pushback against what the government frames as overreach by legal activists. His current ministerial portfolio — Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs — keeps him at the centre of institutional governance debates.

Why Governments Keep Fighting This Battle on Social Media

The exchange fits a wider pattern that has intensified since roughly 2020: government figures, rather than leaving rebuttal to official channels, now engage activist lawyers directly on social media. The calculus is clear — a viral claim about judicial misconduct, left unanswered in public, can erode institutional trust faster than any court judgment can restore it.

Rijiju's specific charge — that fake narratives about India's institutions form part of a coordinated conspiracy — escalates the language beyond personal dispute. It positions the criticism not as legitimate dissent but as a threat to constitutional order itself. That framing will invite scrutiny and, almost certainly, a response from Bhushan's corner.

Whether this volley triggers contempt proceedings, parliamentary debate, or simply another round of social-media sparring, the audience is broader than any single platform: it is every citizen deciding how much trust to place in the courts and the government that sits alongside them.