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The Chhattisgarh High Court on Monday passed an interim order directing that no coercive steps should be taken against Muhammed Zubair, co-founder Altnews, in relation to the case registered against him for allegedly harassing and torturing a minor girl online by a tweet.
Zubair had moved the Chhattisgarh High Court to quash the FIR lodged in Raipur over the tweet (Muhammed Zubair v. State of Chhattisgarh).
The FIR had cited provisions of the Information Technology Act, the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
On Monday, Justice Sanjay K Agrawal
The Court has fixed the next date of hearing for November 5.
The Court took note of submissions made by Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves for Zubair that allegations similar to those levelled in the Raipur FIR were made in an FIR registered against him in Delhi. Such a second FIR, with the same set of facts, is impermissible in light of the Supreme Court's recent verdict in the Arnab Goswami case, it was submitted.
The Delhi High Court had earlier issued notice in a plea to quash the Delhi FIR and granted Zubair interim protection.
Gonsalves also argued that if the contents of the FIR against Zubair which is under challenge is taken as whole, no offence would be made out.
The High Court in turn opined that this is a fit case to grant interim relief in favour of the petitioner (Zubair), given that the Delhi High Court has already granted interim relief in a plea to quash a similar FIR, after considering the facts and the material on record.
In this regard, Justice Agrawal's order states,
"Taking into consideration that with similar allegation, one FIR has already been filed against the petitioner in Delhi and the writ petition (criminal) arising out of that FIR is pending before the Delhi High Court wherein notices have been issued and the Delhi High Court has already granted interim relief in favour of the petitioner and further taking into consideration the facts of the case and the material available on record and considering the fact that the impugned FIR is said to be the second FIR registered against the petitioner with the same set of facts, I consider it a fit case to grant interim relief in favour of the petitioner."
Apart from Senior Advocate Gonsalves, Advocate Kishore Narayan also appeared for Zubair. Government Advocate Ravi Bhagat appeared for the State of Chhattisgarh. Advocate Umesh Sharma appeared for the second respondent in the matter.
The FIRs were registered after Zubair responded to an abusive tweet by twitter handle @JSINGH2252 by tweeting a twitter profile picture of the latter, stating,
“Does your cute granddaughter know about your part time job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you to change your profile pic.”
Zubair had blurred out the picture of the child in the image he posted in his August 6 tweet.
On September 9, the Delhi High Court granted Zubair interim protection, before posting the matter for further hearing on December 8.
Read the Chhattisgarh HC order: