According to reports in India, a high official’s approval might lead to Arundhati Roy, the Indian novelist who won the Booker Prize, being charged for a speech she gave in 2010 regarding Kashmir.

Although Roy, 61, is one of the most well-known living authors in India, her activism and writing have polarised the nation, particularly her criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.

Since it was filed in 2010, a criminal case accusing her and numerous others of sedition has lingered in India’s infamously slow criminal justice system.

However, VK Saxena, the head of Delhi’s administration, approved the case’s legal proceeding, according to reports in Indian media on Tuesday.

According to Saxena’s order, Roy and her co-defendants should be prosecuted “for their speeches at a public function” in the capital, as the Hindu daily stated.

The initial lawsuit charges Roy and other individuals of delivering statements endorsing Kashmir’s separation from India, which both fully and partially claims the disputed region, along with its neighbour Pakistan. India, which has fought two wars and numerous skirmishes with Pakistan over sovereignty of the territory, has found that Kashmir is one of the most sensitive subjects of public conversation.

Since the start of the insurgency against Indian control in 1989, tens of thousands of people have died in Kashmir, including Indian forces, terrorists, and civilians.

2010 saw demonstrators around Roy’s Delhi house after her comments from the panel discussion were made public.

In the thirteen years since the case was initially filed, two of her co-defendants had passed away.

With her critically praised debut novel, The God of Small Things, Roy became the first non-expat Indian to win the Booker Prize in 1997.

She is also well-known for writing impassioned pieces about the misery of India’s impoverished and dispossessed, which can infuriate the elite of the nation.

Her work has made her one of the most well-known opponents of Modi’s government in recent years. Rights groups and others have accused the government of single-out activists for criminal prosecution and attempting to stifle free expression.

According to Reporters Without Borders, India’s “press freedom is in crisis.” India fell 11 spots in the previous year, from 140 to 161 in the rankings of media freedom since 2014.