Citing death threats, Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checker website Alt News,
approached the Supreme Court on Thursday seeking quashing of the FIR and grant of bail “urgently” in a case filed
against him in UP’s Sitapur over a tweet that allegedly referred to some
religious leaders as “hate mongers”. Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves mentioned
the bail plea before a bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and J K Maheshwari and
sought urgent listing on Thursday afternoon. After the bench pointed out that
it has to be assigned by the Chief Justice of India, the counsel requested that
it be listed on Friday. The court agreed to do so, “subject to assignment”.
Mr Zubair had
challenged the Allahabad High Court order refusing to quash FIR registered for
a tweet in which he allegedly called three Hindu seers- as "hate
mongers".
Mentioning the matter
for urgent hearing, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for Zubair, had
told the bench that there is a serious threat to his life.
Supreme Court : The
petitioner shall be granted interim bail for a period of five days with the
conditions that the petitioner shall not put out tweets and he shall not
leave Delhi
……………..