The Alt News co-founder had been taken into custody by the Delhi Police on 27 June, for allegedly hurting religious sentiments by sharing a tweet in 2018 of a film poster that was released decades ago.
Justice Sanjeev Narula issued notice on the petition and granted two weeks to the investigating agency to file its response to the petition which challenges the trial court's June 28 order granting four days of custody of Zubair to the police.
The matter would be heard next on July 27.
Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets and was sent to one-day police custody by the trial court on the same day.
After being produced on the expiry of his one-day custodial interrogation, his custody was extended by another four days by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria.
As per the trial court's order, Zubair would be next produced before it on July 2 upon the expiry of the four days of police remand.
Earlier this month, a case against Zubair was registered under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, language, etc.) and 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Police said the case was registered on the complaint of a Twitter user who accused him of hurting religious sentiments.
Zubair had shared a tweet of a poster from the 1983 Hindi film Kissi se na Kehna. The poster was the picture of a hotel the name of which changed from ‘Honeymoon Hotel’ to ‘Hanuman Hotel’. A twitter account which goes by the name Hanuman Bhakt with seemingly less followers and even lesser posts, raised an issue with the tweet and asked the Delhi police to take action.
The journalist was also one of the few that had pointed out the blasphemous comments of now suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma on the Prophet Mohammad during a prime time news show by Navika Kumar.
