Uttar Pradesh has sought time to file a counter-affidavit on Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair’s plea, terming the allegations against him as “absurd”.
Uttar Pradesh has sought time to file a counter-affidavit on Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair’s plea, terming the allegations against him as “absurd”.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that its granted interim bail To Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair In a case registered in Uttar Pradesh, it will continue till further orders.
A division bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna, in a First Information Report filed in Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh, alleged grant of interim bail to Mr Zubair, represented by senior advocate Colin Gonsalves. Fact-checker for insulting religious sentiments with his tweet“Will remain in operation till further orders”.
The court’s order came after Uttar Pradesh, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, sought time to file a counter-affidavit on Mr Zubair’s plea, terming the allegations against him as “absurd”. He has requested the top court to quash the Sitapur FIR.
Read also | 14 days judicial custody to Zubair; Now Lakhimpur Police also asked for his mobile, laptop
On July 8, a vacation bench of the Supreme Court had granted interim bail to Mr Zubair for five days, subject to a number of conditions, which he did not tweet.
However, the interim bail order had not freed Mr. Zubair. He is in custody facing other cases in both Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
The Supreme Court fixed September 7 for the final hearing of the matter. It gave four weeks time to Uttar Pradesh to file its counter-affidavit and asked Mr. Zubair to file its reply, if any, in two weeks. The court asked the lawyers for both the sides to file a summary of their arguments by the next date.
In the previous hearing, Mr Raju had argued that Mr Zubair had insulted the religious sentiments of the followers of Bajrang Muni Das by calling a religious leader a “hate spreader”. He had argued that Mr Zubair had made allegations that “could provoke dissent”.
habitual offender’
Mr Mehta had termed Mr Zubair as a “habitual offender” and part of a “syndicate”. He said that there was an angle of foreign contribution from countries that was hostile to India’s interests.
Mr Gonsalves responded that his client was “a secular tweeter defending the Constitution”. He said Mr Zubair represents a reputed organisation, which meticulously detected the hate speeches and informed the police.
“The surprising thing here is that the person exposed to hate speech is in jail and those who continue to make hate speeches are out on bail…” submitted Mr. Gonsalves.
The Alt News co-founder had argued that the police was following a “new strategy” for registering hate crime cases, i.e. “registering FIRs against those indulging in hate speech and communal crimes as well as To include all secular elements”. To monitor such crimes and to protest police inaction against wrongdoers.