The Allahabad high court recently denied quashing a petition filed by Mohammed Zubair, the Co-Founder of Alt News, challenging an FIR filed against him earlier this month for reportedly calling three Hindu seers, Yati Narasinghanand, Bajrang Muni, and Anand Swaroop, “hate mongers” in a tweet.
Zubair was arrested earlier this month by the Uttar Pradesh Police under sections 295-A of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Zubair had petitioned the High Court to have the FIR dismissed, stating that he had neither offended nor sought to disrespect a religious belief of a class in his tweet. He further claimed that the F.I.R. against him had been filed solely for the purpose of harassing him and that it was thus likely to be dismissed.
The bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ajai Kumar Srivastava-I, however, denied his appeal, noting that the case is still in its early stages and that the investigation has not yet begun, save from some preliminary work done on the day of the case’s registration.
The bench further stated that a review of the case’s record reveals a prima facie case at this time and that there appear to be adequate grounds for further inquiry in the case.
It should also be mentioned that the FIR against Zubair was filed by Bhagwan Sharan, the Sitapur district president of the Hindutva organisation Rashtriya Hindu Sher Sena, who claimed that Zubair’s tweet had wounded his religious sensibilities.
In the FIR, he claimed that on May 27, 2012, he saw a tweet posted by the petitioner on his social media account “twitter” in which he used the hateful term “hate mongers” against Bajrang Muni.
Zubair was also accused of using his Twitter account to offend Dana Devi temple chief Yati Narsinghanad and Swami Anand Swaroop.
