The Supreme Court of India was approached by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair for quashing of the first information report (FIR) registered against him for hurting the religious sentiments by the Uttar Pradesh police (UP Police) in Sitapur.
The vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari heard the matter that was put before them by Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves.
The Advocate said that Zubair’s job is to fact check news. There are death threats against him and people who deliver hate speech says that they might kill him.”
The bench remarked that it is only the Chief Justice of India who can list matters. It, therefore, directed that the case be listed tomorrow subject to clearance by the CJI.
The bench directed “List the matter tomorrow subject to clearance by the Chief Justice of India”.
Zubair was booked by the UP police for hurting religious sentiments based on a tweet he had put out against Mahant Bajrang Muni, Yati Narsinghanand and Swami Anand Swaroop referring to them as ‘hate mongers’.
Under Section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) and Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act, 2000,the fact finder is currently been put behind bars.
The fact finder had earlier approached the Allahabad High Court to quash the case but the same was turned down.
Zubair had previously applied for the bail but that too was rejected.Zubair is already in judicial custody in a case registered by the Delhi Police which has booked him for promoting enmity among religious groups registered. This case was based on a tweet put out by him in 2018.
The case against Zubair was on a complaint done by Twitter handle named Hanuman Bhakt who alleged that the fact finder.
The case against Zubair was based on a complaint from a Twitter handle called Hanuman Bhakt alleging that Zubair had tweeted a questionable image with the intention to deliberately insult a Hindu God.
On June 27 ,Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police.He was then produced before CMM on June 28 and was remanded to further police custody for 4 days.
On the beginning he was booked for for offences under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) and 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Later on ,he was also charged under section 35 of FCRA and Sections 201 (destruction of evidence) and 120b (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC were added.
Zubair was remanded to 14 days of judicial custody by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria on July 2.
Another FIR has also been registered against Zubair by the UP Police.