New Delhi: The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad high court has refused to quash a first information report (FIR) lodged against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair for calling Hindu seers Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop “hate mongers” on Twitter.
Dismissing his plea, the vacation bench of Justices Ramesh Sinha and Ajay Kumar Srivastava observed, “The perusal of the record makes out, prima facie, offences against the petitioner at this stage and there appears to be a sufficient ground for investigation in the case.”
“The evidence has to be gathered after a thorough investigation and placed before the Court concerned on the basis of which alone the Court concerned concerned can come to a conclusion one way or the other on the allegations levelled by the petitioner. If the allegations are bereft of truth and made
maliciously, the investigation will say so,” the court added, according to LiveLaw.in.
An FIR was lodged against the fact-checking website co-founder on June 1 under Section 295 (A) (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 ( punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act at the Khairabad police station in Sitapur district for deliberately “outraging religious feelings” of the seers.
Also read: FIR Against Mohammed Zubair for Calling Militant Hindutva Leaders ‘Hatemongers’
Zubair challenged the FIR, pleading that his tweet did not insult or attempted to insult religious beliefs of a class and the case has been lodged just to cause “harassment”.
Opposing his petition, the state counsel argued that Zubair is a habitual offender, who has four criminal cases registered against him.
Turning down Zubair’s plea, the Bench said the submissions advanced by the petitioner call for determination on questions of fact, which may be adequately discerned either through proper investigation or adjudicated upon only by the trial court.
On May 27, Zubair, in a series of tweets, slammed prime-time debates on Indian news television channels, which he said, “have become a platform to encourage hate mongers to speak ill about other religions” in connection with the ongoing controversy into the Gyanvapi mosque.
Sharing a video clip of a debate on the Times Now channel, on ‘The Gyanvapi Files’ moderated by its anchor Navika Kumar, Zubair had tweeted: “Well done @vineetjaintimes! Why do we need Hate Mongers like Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati or Mahant Bajrang Muni or Anand Swaroop to arrange a Dharam Sansad to speak against a community and a Religion when we already have Anchors who can do much better job from News Studios.”
(With PTI inputs)