Voice of dissent must in democracy: Delhi court grants bail to Alt News Co-founder Mohammed Zubair

New Delhi, July 15

A Delhi court on Friday granted bail to Alt News Co-founder Mohammed Zubair in a criminal case registered against him in the National Capital for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity between groups through his tweet in 2018.

Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala asked Zubair to furnish a personal bond in the sum of Rs 50,000 with one surety in the like amount.

The court ordered him not to leave India without its permission; not to repeat the offence and ensure that his tweets/re-tweets or any material on social media was not even touching boundaries of the offences he was accused of.

However, despite the bail order, Zubair will continue to be in jail as a Hathras court on Thursday sent him to judicial custody.

“Undoubtedly, free speech is the proper foundation of a democratic society,” the court said. The court further said the Hindu religion was one of the oldest religions and the most tolerant and its followers were also tolerant. “Therefore, the naming of an institute, facility or organisation or child in the name of a Hindu deity on the face of it is not violative of Section 153A and 295A IPC unless the same is done with malice/guilty intention,” the court said in its order granting bail to Zubair.

Zubair had on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of all six FIRs registered against him in Uttar Pradesh.

Alternatively, he demanded clubbing of six FIRs registered in UP at Hathras, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur with that in Delhi where he was first arrested.

Zubair -– who sought interim bail in all six FIRs — has also challenged the validity of SIT formed by the UP Government to probe the cases against him.

The top court had on July 12 adjourned the hearing on his plea seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him at Sitapur to September 7 to enable the Uttar Pradesh Police to file a detailed response to his petition.

In an interim order, a Vacation Bench led by Justice Indira Banerjee had on July 8 granted five-day interim bail to Zubair in a hate speech case registered against him in Sitapur. The interim bail period was already over.

The Vacation Bench had made it clear that the interim bail order was not applicable to any other case, except the one registered at police station Khairabad, Sitapur. While restraining Zubair from putting out any tweets, the top court had also asked him not to tamper with evidence – electronic or otherwise.