The protection of bail will by default also apply to any future FIRs registered against him.
The protection of bail will by default also apply to any future FIRs registered against him.
The Supreme Court has granted interim bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in all first investigation reports (FIRs) currently registered against him in Uttar Pradesh.
The protection of bail will by default also apply to any future FIRs registered against him.
A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and A.S. Bopanna transferred the current FIRs registered against him in Uttar Pradesh to Delhi Police Special Cell.
Though the court has not quashed the FIRs, it has given Mr. Zubair liberty to approach the Delhi High Court to seek the quashing of all the cases against him.
On Monday, the Bench said the “vicious cycle” of cases filed against Mr. Zubair for his tweets seem to have “similar content” and ordered the State to not take any precipitate action against him without the apex court’s permission.
The Bench also refused Uttar Pradesh’s plea to disallow Mr. Zubair tweeting claiming “it may provoke further incident.“ “How can we tell a journalist not to write. How can we tell he will not utter a word. If he does something, he is answerable in law. We cannot stop a citizen from using his voice. We will not say anything like that,” Justice Chandrachud said.
Of the six cases the Uttar Pradesh Police is investigating against Mr. Zubair, five are for his Twitter posts — where he either reported hate crime against Muslims, fact-checked television reports and other false information online, or called out television channels for hosting communal debates.
The other FIR is a rioting case from June 10, where neither Mr. Zubair nor his work or social media is mentioned. This case, in which chargesheet has been filed, has also been transferred to Delhi.
