New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday granted bail to Alt News Co-founder Mohammed Zubair in a criminal case registered against him in the national capital for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity between groups through his tweet in 2018.
Additional Sessions Judge Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala asked Zubair to furnish a personal bond in the sum of Rs 50,000 with one surety in the like amount.
The court ordered him not to leave India without its permission; not to repeat the offence and ensure that his tweets/re-tweets or any material on social media was not even touching boundaries of the offences he was accused of.
However, despite the bail order Zubair will continue to be in jail as a Hathras court on Thursday sent him to judicial custody.
Zubair had on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of all six FIRs registered against him in Uttar Pradesh.
Alternatively, he demanded clubbing of six FIRs registered in UP at Hathras, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur with that in Delhi where he was first arrested.
Zubair – who sought interim bail in all 6 FIRs — has also challenged the validity of SIT formed by UP Government to probe the cases against him.
The top court had on July 12 adjourned the hearing on his plea seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him at Sitapur to September 7 to enable the Uttar Pradesh Police to file a detailed response to his petition.
In an interim order, a Vacation Bench led by Justice Indira Banerjee had on July 8 granted five-day interim bail to Zubair in a hate speech case registered against him in Sitapur. The interim bail period was already over.
The Vacation Bench had made it clear that the interim bail order was not applicable to any other case, except the one registered at PS Khairabad, Sitapur.
While restraining Zubair from putting out any tweets, the top court had also asked him not to tamper with evidence – electronic or otherwise. It had made it clear that the interim bail order shall not affect the investigation of the case and seizure of laptops and other equipment by the Sitapur Police.
Zubair was arrested by Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through his tweets. He has also been accused of violating FCRA provisions and destruction of evidence.