The Delhi High Court Wednesday granted interim protection from arrest to AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair in a plea seeking the quashing of the First Information Report (FIR) registered against him by the Delhi Police over a tweet made by him in response to a twitter user.
A single-judge bench presided by Justice Yogesh Khanna also issued notice to the Delhi Police, the Chief of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) Priyank Kanoongo, and the original complainant Jagdish Singh.
Zubair was booked on August 9 by the Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell on a complaint from the NCPCR for allegedly “threatening and torturing a girl child through Twitter”.
Following a series of abusive responses from one Jagdish Singh on Twitter, on August 6, Zubair called out Singh for being a troll and retweeted his display picture, which featured his daughter. Singh, thereafter, took up the matter with NCPCR, which in-turn sent a complaint to the police and eventually turned into an FIR.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, for Zubair, submitted that while retweeting Singh’s display picture, Zubair had blurred the image of the minor girl and that no offence could be said to have been committed.
On the other hand, Standing Counsel Rahul Mehra, for the State, informed the Court that the investigation was going on and some information from Twitter was awaited.
Submitting that the allegations against him were false, Zubair said no offence was made out in the matter. He also stated that a copy of FIR was not given to him.
The plea was drafted and filed by advocates Gunjan Singh and Pragya Ganjoo.
In a statement on Sunday, Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha dismissed the allegations. “An attempt is being made to hound co-founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair, through misuse of legal apparatus,” Sinha said.
Sinha added “Alt News stands by Mohammed Zubair. Zubair has been at the forefront of fighting fake narratives, and his work hurts those who have weaponized misinformation to subvert Indian democracy”.
Read the Order
http://theleaflet.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Delhi-HC_AltNews_Zubair.pdf
