SC calls Zubair a victim of 'vicious cycle of criminal process'

New Delhi: The judgement related to fact-checker Mohammed Zubair's release that was published yesterday said that the journalist was forced to undergo harassment in the name of arrest.

Giving bail to Zubair, who was behind bars for over a month, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, NV Ramana, observed that the entire process related to his arrest was in haste and the process for making difficulty in obtaining bail with the intention to keep the undertrials in jail for a long time has itself become the punishment.

Justice Ramana called Zubair a victim of "a vicious cycle of criminal process where the process itself has become the punishment."

Reading the judgement by the bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna, has made clear that in no case should the arrest be used as a punishment tool and an accused shall not be dprived of his liberty without a fair trial.

The court was also of the opinion that the power of arrest was not applied in the right manner, in due regards to the law, it is equall to an abuse of power.

The court said the Section 41 of the CrPC and safeguards in criminal law exist in recognition of the reality that any criminal proceeding "almost inevitably involves the might of the state, with unlimited resources at its disposal, against a lone individual".

The arrest of Mohammed Zubair over a screenshot from a popular Hindi film that he had shared on Twitter four year ago was led by his tweet on Nupur Sharma's insulting remarks on Prophet Muhammed.

Soon after, cases after cases were charged against him in many states, making his release on bail difficult. On July, ordering his early release, the court banded a special investigation in UP and transferred all UP cases to Delhi. It has also dismissed the UP government's request that he should be ordered to stop putting tweets.

"According to the petitioner, he is a journalist who is the co-founder of a fact checking website, and he uses Twitter as a medium of communication to dispel false news and misinformation in this age of morphed images, clickbait, and tailored videos. Passing an order restricting him from posting on social media would amount to an unjustified violation of the freedom of speech and expression, and the freedom to practice his profession," the judgement read.