The Allahabad High Court on Thursday refused to quash an FIR registered against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair over his social media posts against controversial priest Yati Narsinghanand.
The Bench of Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Yogendra Kumar Srivastava extended protection against arrest to Zubair during the course of the investigation. The High Court, however, restrained him from leaving the country pending investigation in the case.
A fair probe was required in the matter, it noted.
On the basis of a complaint filed by an associate of Narsinghanand, the Ghaziabad Police lodged an FIR against Zubair in October 2024, accusing him of promoting enmity among religious groups. Zubair moved the High Court challenging the FIR, under which the offence of Section 152 BNS [endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India] was added later on.
Zubair contended that by posting a thread of videos on October 3 featuring Yati Narsinghanand and later sharing other posts with various controversial speeches on his X (formerly Twitter) account, he wanted to highlight the provocative statements given by the controversial priest. Zubair requested the police authorities to take strict action against Narshinghanand.
On the other hand, complainant Udita Tyagi blamed Zubair for sharing the priest’s old video clips with the intent of inciting violence by Muslims. She further alleged that due to Zubair’s tweets, violent protests were held at Dasna Devi Mandir in Ghaziabad.
The Counsel appearing for the State of Uttar Pradesh defended the FIR by arguing that Zubair had created a narrative through his X posts and attempted to incite the public. The timing of his X posts was also questioned, claiming that he had added fuel to the fire.
It was also argued that Zubair’s posts contained half-baked information, which had the potential to damage and threaten the sovereignty and integrity of the country.
Zubair claimed that his posts were made as part of his professional obligation as a fact-checker. He pointed out that such posts did not amount to any offence under either the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita or the Indian Penal Code. The journalist further said that he was exercising his freedom of speech by highlighting Narsinghanand’s conduct. Several news articles and social media accounts had posted about the issue, he added.
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