Plea by Mohammed Zubair in Supreme Court to quash 6 UP Police FIRs to be heard by Justice DY Chandrachud bench

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana on Monday ordered that the plea by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, seeking to quash six first information reports (FIRs) registered against him by the Uttar Pradesh Police (UP Police), be listed before a bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud..The plea was mentioned before the CJI by Zubair's counsel, Vrinda Grover."He is a journalist and a fact checker. there are slew of FIR invoked against him. Can I seek a listing today itself," Grover requested."No not today... List before Justice DY Chandrachud You can mention before that bench. I am listing it before Justice Chandrachud," the CJI said.The bench headed by Justice Chandrachud is already hearing a plea seeking quashing of one of the six FIRs in which he had been granted interim bail. .Zubair in his petition has also raised an alternative prayer to club the six FIRs may be clubbed with the FIR in Delhi where Zubair was first arrested.Zubair has also sought interim bail in all 6 FIRs.Further, he has also challenged constitution of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) by the UP government to probe the six cases..The six cases registered against the Zubair are in Hathras, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur.The cases in Sitapur and Lakhimpur Kheri are for tweets made by the fact checker.The case against Zubair in Sitapur was registered for hurting religious sentiments after he had put out a tweet against Mahant Bajrang Muni, Yati Narsinghanand and Swami Anand Swaroop referring to them as 'hate mongers'.The Supreme Court had granted him interim bail in the Sitapur FIR.The Lakhimpur Kheri case was registered last year in September, 2021, under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code [promoting enmity between different groups], on a complaint by one Ashish Kumar Katiyar, a journalist working at Sudarshan TV.The complainant had taken objection to a tweet posted by Zubair in May 2021. In the tweet, Zubair had said that a report carried on the said news channel, which super-imposed an image of a famous Medina mosque on an image of the Gaza strip, incorrectly showed that the said mosque was destroyed in Israeli air-strikes.He is currently in judicial custody in that case..The Uttar Pradesh government had also formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the six cases registered against Zubair in various districts of the State.The SIT is led by Preetinder Singh, Inspector General of Police (Prisons), and has Amit Verma, Deputy Inspector General of Police as a member..Zubair has also been booked by the Delhi Police in another case based on a 2018 tweet by him containing a screenshot of a 1983 Bollywood movie, Kissi se na kehna.A Delhi Court had on Friday granted bail to Zubair in that case.

Plea by Mohammed Zubair in Supreme Court to quash 6 UP Police FIRs to be heard by Justice DY Chandrachud bench

Debayan Roy

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