Fact-checker Mohd Zubair released from Tihar jail
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of Zubair on interim bail in all the FIRs lodged in Uttar Pradesh against him for alleged hate speech
Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair was released from the Tihar Jail on Wednesday hours after the Supreme Court granted him bail in all the FIRs lodged against him for alleged hate speech.
"Mohd Zubair has been released from Tihar," said a senior prison official.
The SC had earlier in the day said that the "exercise of the power of arrest must be pursued sparingly" and transferred all the cases against Zubair in UP to Delhi.
The court said, "it finds no reason or justification for the deprivation of his liberty to persist any further" and ordered disbanding of the SIT, constituted by the UP police.
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.
"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 added.
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.
Following this, a Delhi court issued release warrants in all the cases against Zubair.
Duty Magistrate Amardeep Kaur issued the order after the counsel for the accused filed bail bond in all six cases lodged in UP and one in Delhi.
Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on 27 June for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through his tweets.
Multiple FIRs were lodged against him in UP - two in Hathras and one each in Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, and at Chandauli police station - on similar charges..