The Allahabad High Court, while hearing a plea filed by Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of Alt- News against an FIR lodged against him over his post on the social media platform X associated with an alleged speech by Yati Narsinghanand, orally questioned Zubair for choosing to post the matter on social media instead of filing an FIR against him or reaching the court to seek appropriate remedy.
“If this person (referring to Yati Narsinhanand) is acting funny, then instead of going to the police, will you act more funny? Have you lodged an FIR against him? I will look at your conduct. If you don’t like his (Yati) speech, face, you should file an FIR against him” the division bench orally remarked.
The Senior Counsel representing Zubair argued before the Court that Zubair was simply exercising his freedom of speech by highlighting his conduct.
The senior counsel further stated that not only Zubair but many others articles and social media accounts had posted about the same. Furthermore, the counsel stated that Zubair had not said anything different. Counsel said that an FIR was lodged against Yati 3 hours before Zubair’s tweet and he did not know that the FIR had been lodged.
However, the division bench said, “Come to the court then…you will go to social media handle… create social disharmony?…Whatever he (Yati) says, you cannot go to social media…Who denies that Twitter cannot be used, but you cannot use it to instigate unrest.. glancing at the tweet shows that you are trying to create unrest.”
The Senior Counsel said that the Supreme Court had allowed such recourse. In 2022, while granting interim bail to Zubair in all the FIRs lodged by the Uttar Pradesh Police in connection to his tweets, the court refused to impose a bail condition that he should not tweet.
“It is like telling a lawyer that you should not argue. How can we tell a journalist that he will not write or utter a word?”, Justice Chandrachud had orally told UP AAG Garima Prashad, Live Law reported.The matter will now come up for a hearing on Friday, 20th December.
Zubair is facing legal action after an FIR was filed by the Ghaziabad Police last month, accusing him of promoting religious discord. The complaint was lodged by Udita Tyagi, the general secretary of the Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati Trust, who claims Zubair shared a video clip from an old event featuring controversial priest Yati Narsinghanand. The video, posted on October 3, allegedly aimed to incite violence by provoking Muslims against Narsinghanand.
Tyagi also alleges that Zubair shared edited clips of Narsinghanand’s speech on X (formerly Twitter), which included inflammatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad, with the intent of inciting racial sentiments against the priest. Zubair referred to the speech as ‘derogatory’ in his post.
Zubair was booked under sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 228 (fabricating false evidence), 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 356(3) (defamation) and 351(2) (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
