Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair has approached the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the first information report (FIR) registered against him by the Uttar Pradesh police (UP Police) in Sitapur in a case of hurting religious sentiments..The matter was mentioned before the vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari by Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves."His job is to fact check news. There are death threats against him and people who deliver hate speech says that they might kill him," Gonsalves said."My lady please list this matter today at 2 pm. He approached Allahabad HC too," he said.The bench said that only the Chief Justice of India can list matters. It, therefore, directed that the case be listed tomorrow subject to clearance by the CJI."List the matter tomorrow subject to clearance by the Chief Justice of India," the bench directed..The case against Zubair was registered by the UP police for hurting religious sentiments based on a tweet he had put out against Mahant Bajrang Muni, Yati Narsinghanand and Swami Anand Swaroop referring to them as 'hate mongers'.Zubair was booked under Section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) and Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act, 2000.He had approached the Allahabad High Court to quash the case but the same was turned down. Zubair has also sought bail in the matter..Zubair is already in judicial custody in a case registered by the Delhi Police which has booked him for promoting enmity among religious groups registered. This case was based on a tweet put out by him in 2018.The tweet contained a screenshot from a movie from the 1980s - Kissi se na kehna. The case against Zubair was based on a complaint from a Twitter handle called Hanuman Bhakt alleging that Zubair had tweeted a questionable image with the intention to deliberately insult a Hindu God.Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 and had been remanded to one-day police custody by the duty magistrate.He was then produced before CMM on June 28 and was remanded to further police custody for 4 days.He was initially booked for offences under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) and 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).Subsequently, offences under Section 35 of FCRA and Sections 201 (destruction of evidence) and 120b (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC were added.He was remanded to judicial custody for 14 days by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria on July 2. .The UP Police had separately registered another FIR against Zubair which has now been challenged.
