Mohammed Zubair’s Bail Plea Rejected: Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur court rejected the bail of fact-checker Mohammad Zubair, against whom several FIRs have been filed recently.
Mohammed Zubair’s Bail Plea Rejected
In the Lakhimpur case, a complaint has been lodged by an employee of Sudarshan News for a tweet by Mr. Zubair last year.
The complainant says that the tweet misled people about the coverage of Israel-Palestine dispute by Sudarshan channel. Mr. Zubair is already in judicial custody in Hathras till July 27.
The hearing on the police custody remand will take place on July 20, Mr Zubair’s lawyer Harjit Singh told news agency ANI.
The session’s court of Mohammadi, Lakhimpur Kheri, had summoned him in a case registered on 18 September 2021 following a complaint by an employee of Sudarshan News. The court had sent him to 14-day judicial custody on Monday.
Mohammad Zubair’s counsel had said that the complainant had objected to the bail plea filed in English, due to which the hearing (for bail) was adjourned. Mohammed Zubair’s Bail Plea Rejected
A total of seven FIRs – six in UP and one in Delhi – have been registered against Mr. Zubair, the co-founder of fact-check website Alt News.
Mr Zubair was granted bail on Friday in a case filed by Delhi Police over a 2018 tweet, for which he was arrested last month.
While granting bail to Mr. Zubair in the 2018 case, Additional Sessions Judge Devendra Kumar Jangla had observed that Indian democracy and political parties are open to criticism, which means that criticism of any party should not be a ground to punish an individual.
“Voice of dissent is essential for a healthy democracy… Undoubtedly, freedom of expression is the proper foundation of a democratic society,” the court said.
The fact checker has been arrested in four of the seven cases and judicial custody has been ordered in two cases.
He had requested the Supreme Court to quash the six cases filed against him by the Uttar Pradesh Police.
He had also said that the Special Investigation Team set up to probe the cases should be withdrawn.
In a hearing on Tuesday, Mr Zubair had requested the Supreme Court to grant him bail and alleged that he was receiving death threats. Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna gave the UP government four weeks to respond to Mr Zubair’s plea.
That day, the Uttar Pradesh Police constituted a special investigation team to investigate several cases against him.
Mohammad Zubair was arrested by Delhi Police on June 27 for sharing a screenshot of a popular Hindi film on his four-year-old tweet.
He was charged and arrested just days after he flagged off a video of suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s provocative remarks on Prophet Mohammad during a TV debate. Mohammed Zubair’s Bail Plea Rejected
