The Supreme Court also granted the Uttar Pradesh government four weeks’ time to file its response.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday extended the interim bail granted to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair till in a case in which he was booked by Uttar Pradesh Police for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through his tweets. Zubair had called some Hindu seers “hate mongers” in his tweet.
Mohammed Zubair’s advocate, Colin Gonsalves, said the interim relief was only for five days and will expire on Tuesday. The Supreme Court also granted the Uttar Pradesh government four weeks’ time to file its response and also extended the interim bail. The court will hear the matter again on September 7.
The bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna, which took up his plea seeking quashing of the Sitapur FIR, was told by Additional Solicitor General S V Raju appearing who represented the state that Zubair had already been granted interim bail by the court on July 8 and the state would need some more time to file its counter-affidavit.
Earlier, the Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair. The court said, “Let the matter be posted before a regular bench. We will grant protection for few days on condition that you will not leave jurisdiction of this court and you will not put up more tweets. We will grant you interim bail for few days.”
On June 27, the Delhi Police arrested Mohammad Zubair of Alt News on charges of hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity among people. He was arrested by the police under Sections 153/295 of the IPC. Zubair is one of the founders of the fact-checking website Alt News.
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