Supreme Court grants 5-day interim bail to Zubair in UP FIR

The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair for five days in connection with a case registered against him by the Uttar Pradesh Police for a tweet. Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice J.K. Maheshwari said: The petitioner shall be granted interim bail in respect of the FIR.. for a period of five days from today or till further orders of the Regular Bench on the terms and conditions to be imposed by the Judicial Magistrate-I, Sitapur, including those conditions. That the petitioner will not post any tweet. shall not tamper with any evidence, electronic or otherwise, anywhere else."

It is clarified that this order pertains only to the FIR dated 01.06.2022 registered in PS Khairabad, District Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, representing Zubair, submitted that his client was promoting secularism and not promoting any enmity between religions.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Uttar Pradesh government, submitted that the petitioner was a habitual offender and it was not a matter of one tweet or another, and instead whether he was part of a syndicate aimed at destabilizing the society. Tweets.

Gonsalves said his client had accepted the tweet, so there was no need for a police investigation.

Opposing Zubair's plea, Mehta argued that many facts have been suppressed in the petition filed by the petitioner.

The Delhi High Court had earlier issued notice to the Delhi Police on Zubair's plea challenging the order of the Patiala House Court in connection with the alleged objectionable tweet. Mehta informed the top court that a trial court in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday rejected Zubair's bail and remanded him to custody.