SC grants interim bail to Zubair in UP Police FIR

Story by  ATV | Posted by  Nakul Shivani • 1 Years ago
Mohammad Zubair
Mohammad Zubair

 

New Delhi

The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to fact-checking website Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair in the case registered against him in Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh and also issued notice to the state police on his plea challenging the Allahabad High Court order.

The interim bail to Zubair was granted for 5 days on the condition that he will not post any fresh tweets on the issue related to the case and not leave the jurisdiction of the Sitapur Magistrate's court.

The apex court also said that Zubair shall not tamper with electronic evidence in Bengaluru or anywhere else.

Zubair approached the top court challenging the Allahabad High Court's June 10 order where it had refused to quash an FIR registered against him in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh saying that it was premature to interfere when the investigation was at a preliminary stage.

Filing the appeal against the High Court order, Zubair also sought direction to stay the investigation in the case and direction for UP police not to "proceed, prosecute or arrest" him on the basis of the FIR.

The FIR was registered for a tweet in which he allegedly called Hindu seers Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop "hate mongers" on Twitter.

Opposing the bail plea, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta representing the UP government argued that the case was not about one tweet but instead of whether he was part of a syndicate that put out tweets to destabilise society.

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Zubair is already in judicial custody in a case registered by the Delhi police for allegedly hurting religious sentiments over a tweet posted by him in 2018. 

Meanwhile, the apex court also granted relief to TV news anchor Rohit Ranjan and directed the concerned authorities not to take any coercive steps against him in connection with multiple FIRs lodged against him for running an alleged doctored video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

He informed the court that he does a show in which there was a mistake and he later apologized for it but multiple FIRs were filed against him.