New Delhi: The Delhi High Court today directed the Delhi Police not to take any coercive action against AltNews co-founder and to file a copy of the FIR while issuing notice on a plea filed by Mohammed Zubair, Co-Founder, AltNews, seeking quashing of the FIR filed against him for allegedly “threatening and torturing a girl child through Twitter.”
Justice YogeshKhanna, while hearing the matter through video conferencing, directed Twitter to co-operate with the Delhi Police in the said matter.
The petition has been filed seeking quashing of the FIR registered against Zubair by Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell. The FIRsare centered around a tweet shared on 6.8.20 by Zubair, where he called out Jagdish Singh who is a habitual twitter troll for being an abusive person on social media. Jagdish has respectively abused, demeaned, and even left communally charged comments/replies on petitioner’s Twitter page.
Zubair tweeted: “Hello Jagdish Singh, Does your cute grand-daughter know about your parttime job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you to change your profile pic.” This was along with a photograph of a minor girl, with her face blurred, that was Jagdish’s profile picture.
In connection to this the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights tweeted in furtherance of taking action against Zubair. The commission stated: “The Commission has taken cognizance of the case of threatening and torturing a girl child through Twitter. Necessary communication have been issued to @TwitterIndia and concerned law enforcement authorities for appropriate action.”
The petition stated: “It is amply clear that the FIR was lodged to harass the petitioner and not a single offense is made out against him. This practice is nothing more than abuse of process of the court, a malicious prosecution with hidden personal agenda of the habitual troll Jagdish Singh who clearly was embarrassed by the 6.8.20 that mirrored him of his indecent and abusive actions.”
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The bench has further directed the Delhi Police to file a status report, with regards to the matter within 8 weeks. The matter is listed for the next hearing on December 5.
-India Legal Bureau