Lakhimpur Kheri Court refuses bail to Mohammed Zubair in 2021 Sudarshan TV fact-check case

A local court in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri on Saturday denied bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in a case registered against him by the Uttar Pradesh Police for the offence of promoting enmity between religious groups, TOI reported..Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Ruchi Srivastava noted that the offences against Zubair are non-bailable and that the circumstances of the case and the gravity of the offences did not entitle him to be released on bail at this stage of the investigation..On July 11, the Court had remanded Zubair to 14-day judicial custody in the Lakhimpur Kheri case.The case against Zubair was registered in September last year, under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code [promoting enmity between different groups], on a complaint by one Ashish Kumar Katiyar, a journalist working at Sudarshan TV.The complainant had taken objection to a tweet posted by Zubair in May 2021 in which he said that a report carried on Sudarshan TV, which super-imposed an image of a famous Medina mosque on an image of the Gaza strip, incorrectly showed that the said mosque was destroyed in Israeli air-strikes.In the First Information Report (FIR), the complainant had claimed that Zubair was inciting Muslims against the news channel by posting the tweet. Twitter has also been arraigned as an accused in the case for failing to take down the said tweet.Besides the charge under Section 153A, Sections 153B [Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration], 505(1)(B) [likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public] and 505(2) [Statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes] were also added.Local police in Lakhimpur Kheri have already sought Zubair’s police custody in this case and the application is set to be heard on July 20..A Delhi Court had, on July 15, granted granted bail to Zubair, who has been separately booked by the Delhi Police for promoting enmity among religious groups through his tweets and for violations of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA)."A free exchange of ideas, dissemination of information without restrains, dissemination of knowledge, airing of differing view points, debating and forming one's own views and expressing them, are the basic indicator of a free society. This freedom alone makes it possible for people to formulate their own views and opinions on a proper basis and to exercise their social, economic and political rights in a free society in an informed manner," the Delhi Court had observed while granting bail to Zubair.Zubair has also been booked by Sitapur Police in a case of hurting religious sentiments, in which the Supreme Court granted him interim bail on July 8.The Uttar Pradesh government had also formed a Special Investigation Team to investigate the six cases filed against Zubair. This prompted him to approach the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the six FIRs.