Alt News' Mohammed Zubair granted bail in all six UP Police FIRs by SC
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New Delhi: AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair was granted bail by the Supreme Court on Wednesday in six First Information Reports (FIRs) registered by the Uttar Pradesh Police (UP Police) against him.
The order of a bench comprising Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and AS Bopanna pointed out that the Patiala House Court had earlier granted bail to Zubair in a similar case registered by the Delhi Police.
"Essentially the gravamen of allegations are tweets by him. He has been subjected to fairly sustained probe by Delhi Police. We don't find reason for his deprivation of liberty to persist further. We direct Zubair be released on bail on each of the FIRs in UP. Existence of powers of arrest must be distinguished from the exercise of powers of arrest, which must be used sparingly," the order said.
The court added that Zubair's continued incarceration has no justification particularly as the accusations in the UP FIRs are similar to those in the FIR filed by the Delhi Police.
The court further noted that the Delhi Police's case registered against him included tweets, funding-related aspects and alleged violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
"Delhi Police has submitted a comprehensive status report showing the course of investigation, tweets which form part of the probe and search and seizure which was carried out on premises of petitioner. It is evident that the probe by the special Delhi Police cell is a comprehensive investigation which looks at the gamut of tweets by the petitioner. Petitioner was granted regular bail on July 15 by the Patiala House Court," the order said.
The court clubbed all six FIRs registered by the UP police and transferred them to Delhi, disbanding the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the UP police to probe the cases against Zubair.
Zubair had approached the Supreme Court seeking to quash the six FIRs registered against him by the UP police.
Cases were registered against Zubair in Hathras, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur.
Based on the interim bail granted by the apex court, and the clubbing of FIR's, Zubair is expected to be released from Tihar jail later on Wednesday.
