The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended the interim bail granted to fact-checker Mohammed Zubair over the FIR registered against him in Uttar Pradesh (UP)’s Sitapur till the next hearing.
During the hearing on Tuesday, the UP government said on Zubair’s petition seeking cancellation of the FIR in this case, that the government wants to file a counter-affidavit. The court has asked the UP government to file a reply within 4 weeks.
The Supreme Court was hearing a plea of fact-checking website Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair challenging the Allahabad High Court order refusing to quash an FIR registered against him by Uttar Pradesh police in Sitapur for a tweet in which he allegedly called three Hindu seers as ‘hate mongers’.
Zubair had approached the top court challenging the Allahabad High Court’s 10th June order where it had refused to quash an FIR registered against him, saying that it was premature to interfere when the investigation was at a preliminary stage.
Filing the appeal against the High Court order, Zubair also sought direction to stay the investigation in the case and direction for UP police not to “proceed, prosecute or arrest” him on the basis of the FIR. The FIR was registered for a tweet in which he allegedly called Hindu seers Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop “hate mongers” on Twitter.