The Supreme Court bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna will on Tuesday, 12 July, hear the plea by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair seeking to quash the First Information Report (FIR) registered against him on 1 June by the Uttar Pradesh police over his tweet calling Yati Narsinghanand, Bajrang Muni, and Anand Swaroop "hatemongers."
The Supreme Court had granted five-day interim bail to Zubair on Friday, 8 July. The top court specified that the interim bail pertained only to the ‘hatemongers’ case FIR, which meant that even though Zubair got bail, he was not released from custody.
The journalist is in judicial custody in connection with an FIR registered by the Delhi Police for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity through his tweet made in 2018, in which he had shared an image from a Hindi film that showed the signboard of a hotel visibly changed from 'Honeymoon Hotel' to 'Hanuman Hotel.' The image was accompanied by the text: “BEFORE 2014: Honeymoon Hotel. After 2014: Hanuman Hotel”.
Meanwhile, Zubair on Monday moved a Delhi court seeking bail in the case registered against him over the 2018 tweet.
Since his arrest in 2018 tweet case, several other cases have been filed against the fact-checker, triggering condemnation from activists and journalists who have slammed the state's actions against the journalist.
Moreover, a court in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri on Monday, sent Zubair to judicial custody for 14 days.
A warrant was issued by the Lakhimpur Kheri police against the fact-checker on 9 July over a case registered against him in 2021 for allegedly spreading enmity between religious groups.
In the FIR accessed by The Quint, the complainant, named Ashish Kumar Katiyar, accused Zubair of propagating fake news on Twitter with the motive of disturbing communal harmony, following which a case was registered under Section 153-A (promoting enmity between two groups) of the Indian Penal Code.
(With inputs from LiveLaw.)
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