Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair has moved the Supreme Court seeking to quash six First Information Reports (FIRs) registered against him in Uttar Pradesh for insulting religious feelings on Twitter. The FIRs have been registered at Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Sitapur, Lakhimpur and Hathras.
The fact-checker has also challenged the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) by the Uttar Pradesh Police to investigate the cases.
In the alternative, Mr. Zubair said the cases in Uttar Pradesh should be clubbed with the one in Delhi. He was first arrested in the Delhi case on June 27. He has also sought interim bail in all the six FIRs in Uttar Pradesh.
Interim bail
On July 8, a Vacation Bench of the Supreme Court had allowed interim bail to Mr. Zubair for five days in the Sitapur case subject to several conditions, including that he does not tweet.
On July 12, the Supreme Court extended the interim bail till further orders in the Sitapur case while giving time to Uttar Pradesh to file its counter-affidavit. The case is scheduled for September 7.
The Sitapur case was registered in June this year over a tweet by Mr. Zubair which referred to hate-speech accused Hindu seers, Bajrang Muni, Yati Narsinghanand, and Anand Swaroop as "hatemongers".
In the Lakhimpur Kheri case registered at the Mohammadi police station, Mr. Zubair has already filed a bail application and the police are looking to seek his police custody.
Advocate Harjit Singh, appearing for Mr. Zubair in Lakhimpur, said, "On Thursday we were meant to argue on the bail plea. The prosecution sought that a Hindi translation of the bail application should be filed for them. So, now, the bail application is set to be heard on July 16 and the police remand application on July 20."
This FIR is from last year, registered against Mr. Zubair for a fact-check of a television channel report he had posted on Twitter. A journalist from the said channel — Sudarshan TV — had approached a court for an FIR in this case and the court had ordered the police to register the FIR.
Meanwhile, in one of the two cases registered against Mr. Zubair in Hathras district, the local court on Thursday remanded the journalist in 14 days’ judicial custody after he was produced before the magistrate, his lawyers said.
