Delhi Court grants bail to Alt News co-founder Zubair in 2018 tweet case

New Delhi: At 2 pm on Friday, Delhi Patiala House Court granted bail to journalist and fact-checker Mohammed Zubair in an FIR registered against him in Delhi for allegedly hurting religious sentiments via tweets. He was bailed on the condition to furnish Rs. 50,000 bond with a surety and won’t be allowed to leave the country without the permission of the Court. he will remain in U.P police custody because the Hathras District Court on 14 July sent him to 14-days judicial custody in a case with similar charges.

During the hearing, the Delhi Court asked the prosecution about why the statement of the complainant was not recorded? The Delhi Police lawyers responded by saying that tweets are there and then the Court reprimanded by saying, “you can’t go by tweets. You have to go by CrPC. There is a procedure and you have to record statements of people.” the Live Law reported.

There are now seven charges against the Co-founder of fact-checking portal Alt News, Mohammad Zubair, one for a 2018 tweet and one for alleged FCRA violations by the Delhi Police, while two cases against Zubair are lodged in the Hathras district while one case each is registered in Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Ghaziabad, and Muzaffarnagar districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Recently the warrant was obtained a few hours after the Supreme Court granted Zubair five days of interim bail in a case registered by the Sitapur police. It is an FIR filed by a Sudarshan TV reporter with Lakhimpur Kheri police that has been used to summon him for interrogation and it acted as a precursor to seeking his custody. Zubair has also moved to the Supreme Court seeking to quash all 6 FIRs filed in Uttar Pradesh.

The U.P Police has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for a transparent investigation into cases lodged against fact-checker Zubair in various districts of the state. The SIT will be led by the inspector general (prisons) Preetinder Singh.

Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves told the NDTV, “The judges need to firmly stand up and stop this sort of nonsense by bringing all 7 FIRs together and dispose of the case (against Zubair) in 15 minutes as all the charges are similar. It will be easily established that there is no criminal offence in any of his tweets.”

How charges against Zubair dropped and added

According to The Hindu report, on June 28, the Delhi police told a local court they had “removed” Section 295 of the Indian Penal Code and “added” Section 295A (deliberate act to outrage religious feelings). This submission came after Zubair’s lawyer pointed out that a tweet could not perhaps fall under the ambit of Section 295 (injuring or defiling a place of worship). At the next remand hearing on July 2, the Delhi police told the court they were also “adding” Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 201 (destruction of evidence) of the IPC, and Section 35 of the Foreign Contributions (Regulations) Act (FCRA).

Similarly, after having registered the FIR on June 1, the Sitapur police on July 7 informed a court that they were “adding” Section 153A, and in the July 8 Supreme Court hearing, informed that it had “removed” Section 67 of the IT Act from the case after a senior advocate Colin Gonsalves questioned how the tweet in question could fall under the ambit of Section 67 of the IT Act (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material electronically).

Many High Courts have ruled that altering an FIR is not permissible, precisely because it is the First Information Report and will not remain so if altered. They have also noted that the police are free to continue their investigation and remove or add penal provisions if their investigation revealed the need for it but only at the stage of filing the chargesheet.