Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Alt News' co-founder Mohammad Zubair in connection with the case registered against him in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, news agency ANI reported.
The apex court also issued notice to the UP police on Zubair's plea challenging Allahabad High Court order.
The Allahabad High Court refused to dismiss the FIR filed against him after he reportedly labelled Hindu seers as "hate mongers" in a tweet.
The UP police filed a complaint against Zubair for hurting religious feelings on the basis of a tweet he wrote against Mahant Bajrang Muni, Yati Narsinghanand, and Swami Anand Swaroop, referring to them as "hate mongers."
Zubair was charged under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (deliberate and malicious acts intended to offend religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) (IT Act).
Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves, representing Zubair, claimed in court that no criminal case could be established against Zubair. nsalves argued in court that no criminal case can be made out against Zubair. “The foundation of this case is a tweet. We seek quashing of proceedings, and questions of police or judicial custody are irrelevant now. There’s no case made out and the proceedings need to be quashed,” he informed Supreme Court, ANI reporterd.
“What has this country has come to. The person who exposes it is in jail and the person continuing is on bail. Hate mongers made remarks on Constitution, judges. Zubair has exposed this kind of venomous language against judges, Constitution…and he’s in jail for it,” he added.
In the meantime, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Uttar Pradesh police, accused Zubair of "suppression of facts" and said that the journalist's appeal failed to specify that his bail request had been denied yesterday by the Sitapur court. In response, Gonsalves informed the top court that the petition had said that the Sitapur police wanted to place the journalist in their custody.
According to SG Mehta, the issue wasn't the disputed remark but rather whether Zubair was "part of syndicate to put out such tweets to destabilise the society," according to Bar & Bench. Mehta described Zubair as a "habitual offender" and said that there was a "money angle" at play.
(With ANI Inputs)