Delhi Court To Hear Mohammed Zubair's Bail Plea In 2018 Tweet Case On July 14

A Delhi Court will hear on July 14 the plea filed by Co-Founder of Alt News Mohammed Zubair seeking bail in the Delhi FIR registered against him recently for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity through his tweet made in 2018.

Zubair was denied bail by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria on July 2.

The development came after Special Public Prosecutors Atul Srivastava, appearing on virtual conferencing, informed Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala of Patiala House Courts, that he will not be able to argue the matter, thereby seeking an accommodation for 14th.

Accordingly, the Court listed the matter for 14th July at 12:30 PM.

On the other hand, Advocate Vrinda Grover appearing for Mohammed Zubair apprised the Court about the overall facts of the case. She argued that the image in question is from a Hindi film "Kisi Se Na Kehna", which was made in 1983. She also claimed that several Twitter users had shared the image, however, only Zubair was "targeted".

Zubair was earlier remanded to four days police custody after the CMM observed that he remained "non-cooperative" and recovery of the devices used for posting the tweet was to be made. Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court has issued notice on Zubair's plea challenging his custody. Thereafter, he was sent to 14 days judicial custody.

Zubair has been arrested under Section 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, etc.) and Section 295 (Injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the Indian Penal Code.

As per Delhi Police, the case has been registered after a complaint was received from a twitter handle, wherein it was alleged that Zubair had tweeted a "questionable image with a purpose to deliberately insult the god of a particular religion."

According to the FIR, Zubair's tweet from 2018 on the renaming of a 'Honeymoon Hotel' after Hindu god Hanuman is an insult of their religion.

The FIR alleged that the words and the picture used by Zubair against a particular religious community were highly provocative and more than sufficient to incite feeling of hatred amongst people which can be detrimental for maintenance of public tranquillity in the society.