Mohammed Zubair Moves Allahabad HC Against UP Police FIR Over His 'X' Post On Yati Narsinghanand's Alleged Speech

Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair has moved the Allahabad High Court challenging an FIR lodged by the Ghaziabad Police last month accusing him of promoting enmity among religious groups, among other charges, following a complaint by an associate of controversial priest Yati Narsinghanand.

The complaint lodged by Udita Tyagi, general secretary of the Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati Trust, claims that Zubair posted a video clip of an old programme of Narsinghanand's on October 3 with the intent to provoke violence by Muslims against him.

It has also been alleged in the complaint that Zubair posted edited clips of the priest on X (formerly Twitter), containing Narsinghanand's alleged incendiary remarks on Prophet Muhammad, to incite radical sentiments against the controversial priest. In his X Post, he called the alleged speech of Narsinghanand 'derogatory'.

Zubai was booked under sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 228 (fabricating false evidence), 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 356(3) (defamation) and 351(2) (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Zubair has moved the High Court to seek quashing of the plea and protection from coercive action. In his plea, he stated that his X post does not call for violence against Yati. He had merely alerted the police authorities about Narsinghanand's actions and sought action as per law, and this could not amount to promoting disharmony or ill-will between two classes of people.

He has also challenged the invocation of the Defamation provision under the BNS on the grounds that seeking action against Narsinghanand by sharing his own videos, which are already in the public domain, cannot amount to defamation,

The plea also states that at the time of making the derogatory remarks against the Prophet, Narsinghanand was on bail in another hate speech case, where his bail condition stipulated that he would not make any statements which promote communal disharmony.

The matter is likely to come up for a hearing before a bench of Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Prashant Kumar.

It may be noted that a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) is pending before the Allahabad High Court to restrain Yati Narsinghanand from raising questions against Prophet Mohammad and the holy book Qur'an.