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India top court grants bail to Alt News co-founder: ‘How can a journalist be restrained from tweeting, writing?’

Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair released from Tihar Jail in New Delhi on Wednesday, July 20, 2022. (ANI Photo)

By: PTI

TWENTY-FOUR days after his arrest, Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair walked free from Tihar jail here on Wednesday (20) night, within hours of the Indian Supreme Court granting him interim bail in all first information reports (FIRs) lodged in Uttar Pradesh against him for allegedly hurting religious sentiments, saying “exercise of the power of arrest must be pursued sparingly”.

The court said it finds “no reason or justification for the deprivation of his liberty to persist any further”, ordered the disbanding of the SIT constituted by the Uttar Pradesh police and directed the transfer of all UP cases to Delhi.

A bench of justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and AS Bopanna also refused to restrain Zubair from tweeting in the future as sought by the UP government, saying can a lawyer be restrained from arguing.

“How can a journalist be restrained from tweeting and writing? If he violates any law by tweeting or for that matter any citizen speaking in public or private, then he can be proceeded as per the law”, the bench said in a lengthy order passed after more than two-hour hearing.

“It is a settled principle of law, that the existence of the power of arrest must be distinguished from the exercise of arrest and the exercise of the power of arrest must be pursued sparingly,” it said.

Zubair showed the victory sign as he hurriedly left in a car after his release at around 9 pm. Earlier, the court said the directions for the transfer of investigations of the FIRs which have been registered in Uttar Pradesh to the special cell of Delhi Police shall apply to all the existing FIRs forming the subject matter of the tweets as noted earlier and to any future FIR to be registered against him under the same subject matter.

Fairness to Zubair would require that the entirety of the investigation into all the FIRs be clubbed together and should be handled by one and the same investigating authority, it added. It said the overlap between the allegations in the FIRs, emanating as they do, from the tweets of the petitioner (Zubair) would only go to emphasise the need for a consolidated as opposed to a piecemeal investigation by a diverse set of law enforcement agencies.

The apex court said that essentially, the gravamen of allegations against the petitioner pertains to tweets that have been put out by him. “Having found from the record that the petitioner has been subjected to a fairly sustained investigation by the Delhi police, we find no reason or justification for the deprivation of the liberty of the petitioner to persist any further.

“Consequently, we are of the view that the petitioner shall be released on interim bail in each of the FIRs which form the subject matter of these proceedings under Article 32 of the (Indian) Constitution”, it said.

The top court, which did not upload the detailed order on its website but the operating part only, said that it would take some time to transcribe the detailed judgment and directed that Zubair will be released on interim bail in all the FIRs lodged in UP after depositing a bail bond of Rs 20,000 (£209) with the chief metropolitan magistrate at Patiala House Court in New Delhi.

“Immediately upon the presentation of the bail bonds, the Superintendent at the Tihar Jail shall take necessary steps to ensure that the petitioner is released from judicial custody….,” it said.

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