Delhi High Court Issues Notice To Delhi Police On Journalist Md Zubair's Plea Against Remand

he case pertains to an alleged objectionable tweet Zubair had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity.

Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News, being brought by the Delhi Police to Bengaluru

The Delhi High Court on Friday issued a notice to Delhi Police and sought its stand on a plea by journalist Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of Alt News, challenging the legality of his police remand, PTI reported. The case pertains to an alleged objectionable tweet Zubair had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity.

On June 28, a trial court had granted four days of custody of Zubair to Delhi Police. Justice Sanjeev Narula granted two weeks to Delhi Police to file its response to the petition.

"The police remand order is for four days. I will have to hear the other side. I will issue notice," Justice Narula said.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on July 27. However, Justice Narula said that proceedings before the trial court would continue without being influenced by the proceedings in the HC.

Zubair was arrested by Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets and was sent to one-day police custody. After the expiry of the remand, a trail court extended his custody by another four days. His custody now expires on July 2.

Last month, a case against Zubair was registered under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, language, etc.) and 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

In the trial court, Delhi Police said Zubair used religious tweets in an effort to get famous and there was a deliberate effort to create social disharmony and hurt religious feelings. The investigating agency had also said that the accused joined the probe but did not cooperate and various material from his phone was deleted.

Advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing for Md Zubair, had opposed the police plea and alleged that the agency had called Zubair for questioning in some other case but he was arrested in the present case in haste.

Grover had also said that the photo that Zubair used in the tweet was of an old Hindi film from 1983 by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, 'Kissi Se Na Kehna'.

On Thursday, a Delhi Police team visited Zubair's residence in Bengaluru and seized a laptop and hard disks. The police has also written to multiple banks seeking information about Zubair's account details and other financial transactions.

(With inputs from PTI)