Alt News journalist Mohammed Zubair appealed to the Supreme Court, challenging the Allahabad high court’s refusal to quash an FIR registered against him. In the hearing on Friday, Additional solicitor general SV Raju, appearing for the investigating officers incharge of the case, accused Zubair of “hurting religious sentiments.”
Zubair has been accused of hate speech for referring to Hindutva leaders Bajrang Muni, Yati Narsinghanand and Anand Swaroop, as “hate-mongers.” Further, the journalist has been booked under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) and section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act.
Accusations of being a syndicate member:
At the very start of today’s hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the state of UP claimed that the truth to be arrived at is “whether he (Zubair) is part of a syndicate which is regularly posting such tweets with the intention to destabilize the country.”
Issues with the word hate-monger
Further, SV Raju said that Zubair’s claim of writing to the police is false. “He says he wrote to the police. No, he is tweeting it. And everybody comes to know about it. Calling a religious leader a hate-monger. He is inciting violence,” he said.
“Bajrang Muni is a respected mahant religious leader in Sitapur with large following. When you call a religious leader hate-monger, it raises problems,” added SV Raju. He then went on to say that Zubair has outraged the religious feelings of large number of followers of Bajrangi Baba. Post which, Mehta added that the journalist was part of a syndicate.
Further the additional solicitor general argued that despite the police dropping Section 67 of the IT Act in the Sitapur FIR, there was a “law and order situation” after Zubair posted his tweet.
Application moved with malice
Arguing against the stay of proceedings, ASG Raju said that “Valuable evidence is lying in Bangalore. If proceedings are stayed, that evidence can be destroyed. The application has been moved with ulterior motive.”
After arguments were made by Colin Gonsalves, the lawyer appearing for Zubair, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Mohammed Zubair for 5 days in the FIR registered by UP Police on the condition that he will not leave the jurisdiction of the Delhi magistrate and will not post any tweets.
The journalist will however, remain in jail as he has not received bail for the case in Delhi.
The bail is an interim order as the Supreme Court will next hear the matter after five days.
