Zubair walks out of jail as SC grants bail

Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair on Wednesday evening walked out of Tihar jail after Supreme Court granted him interim bail in all the FIRs registered against him in Uttar Pradesh.

Advocate Soutik Banerjee, his lawyer, said, “Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair is released from Tihar and is now out of jail.” Mohammed Zubair was arrested on June 27 by Delhi Police.

Earlier, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in all six cases filed against him across Uttar Pradesh for his alleged derogatory tweets.  Out of the six cases two are registered in Hathras, one each in Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur districts.

The top court in its order said that the investigation into the six FIRs registered in UP shall stand transferred from the Uttar Pradesh Police to the Special Cell of the Delhi Police.  

As a consequence, the SIT which was constituted by the Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh on 10 July 2022, shall stand disbanded, the court added.

A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Surya Kant and A.S. Bopanna said there is no justification to keep Zubair in continued detention, especially since the allegations in the FIRs registered in Uttar Pradesh are similar to those in the Delhi Police FIR.

“Existence of powers of governments can be toppled despite the bar under the 10th schedule,” Sibal said.

Meanwhile, senior advocate Harish Salve for the Eknath Shinde camp said that inner party democracy has been throttled by disqualification proceedings. He has sought time to file a reply on the petitions filed by the Thackeray camp and asks to post the hearing next week.

In his arguments, Sibal said: “Forty members of Shiv Sena by their conduct are deemed to have incurred disqualification by giving up party membership. By voting for a candidate put up by the BJP as Speaker in violation of the official whip, they have attracted disqualification. By voting in the vote of confidence violating official whip, they have incurred disqualification,” said Sibal.

He further said that the Governor should not have sworn-in to the new government when the Supreme Court was hearing the matters.

“Speaker recognizing a whip other than the official whip nominated by the party is mala fide,” he said.Sibal said that the issue of the political party is itself in question. When disqualified members elect a person and they stand disqualified, then the election itself is bad.

“What happens to the verdict of the people who elected the government,” Sibal asks.He said that the Schedule that has been used to prevent defection has been used to instigate defection. The tenth schedule has been turned topsy-turvy. Every day’s delay will play havoc with democratic decisions. An illegitimate government should stay for a single day, he added.

Senior advocate Singhvi appearing for the Uddhav Thackeray-led camp also told the Supreme Court that the so-called departing faction sent a letter to the then Deputy Speaker seeking his removal and they sent it from an unauthorized email followed by a letter by an advocate. Deputy Speaker didn’t take it on record saying no MLAs came before him.

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