THE Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted interim protection to Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, chairperson, Delhi Minorities Commission, from coercion action against him in pursuance to an FIR lodged against him for alleged sedition and promoting religious enmity.
The interim protection to remain in force until next date of hearing, which is fixed for June 24, said Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri.
In his anticipatory bail plea, filed through Advocates Vrinda Grover, Ratna Appender and Soutik Banerjee, Dr Zafarul Islam Khan had alleged that the FIR was mala fide, misconceived and was based on misrepresentation of facts and untenable reading of the law.
Delhi police lodged a case against Dr Zafarul after he had tweeted a post “highlighted the targeting of Muslims by ‘bigots’ in India and expressed his thanks to Kuwait, for expressing international concern on the issue of the Muslim minority in India”.
“That the Petitioner’s social media post was falsely reported, distorted and sensationalized out of context by certain sections of the media in order to embarrass the Petitioner and to tarnish the stellar work that the Petitioner has been doing as Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission. Alarmed that his social media post was being maliciously and knowingly distorted and false meanings and motives attributed to his words, the Petitioner responded through his social media posts dated 29th April, 2020, and further on 1st May, 2020, the Petitioner elaborated on his original tweet and clarified the distortions and misrepresentations by sections of the media”, petitioner contended in the HC.
Advocate Vrinda Grover appeared for the petitioner before the Delhi HC.
Read the Order here:
[pdfviewer]http://theleaflet.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/63849_2020.pdf[/pdfviewer]
