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On Monday, Alt News co-founder and fact checker Mohammed Zubair sought an urgent listing of his plea in the Supreme Court which sought to quash 6 FIRs lodged against him in several districts of Uttar Pradesh for allegedly outraging religious sentiments.
Mohammed Zubair’s lawyer Vrinda Grover reportedly submitted to the bench, headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana, that Zubair’s plea needed an urgent hearing as he has been facing a slew of FIRs. The plea has also challenged the constitution of the Special Investigation team (SIT) by the Uttar Pradesh government to probe the six cases, as all of them have been the subject matter of the FIR which is being probed by the Delhi Police.
The bench reportedly said, “List it before Justice DY Chandrachud. You can mention it before that bench.”
On July 15, 2022, a Delhi Court granted bail to Muhammad Zubair in a case related to 2018 tweet that allegedly hurt religious sentiments and promoted enmity. However, he still remains in judicial custody for two other cases filed in Uttar Pradesh. The Hathras Court remanded him to 14-day judicial custody, setting the next date of hearing on July 27.
Zubair has been charged under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity), 295A (acts to outrage religious feelings), and 298 (uttering words to wound religious feelings), along with section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material) of the Information Technology Act.
As per reports, Zubair was first arrested by the Delhi police on June 27 over a tweet posted by him in 2018 and was later remanded in the other FIRs registered by the UP Police.
On July 8, Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari granted him interim bail in the Sitapur case under the condition that he will not will not post any further tweets. They made it clear that the court had not stayed the investigation in the FIR and that interim relief does not apply to any other pending case.
On July 12, 2022, the Supreme Court extended the five days interim bail granted to him in the case where he had called three religious leaders “hate mongers” (Sitapur case). A bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud granted the state government four weeks to file its counter. The authorities charged the fact-checking website head for deliberate and malicious acts, intent to outrage religious feelings and promote enmity between different religious groups.
Separate FIRs have been lodged against Zubair in Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, and Hathras districts on charges of allegedly hurting religious feelings, making sarcastic remarks on news anchors, disrespecting Hindu gods, and inflammatory posts.
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