Zubair's bail plea rejected, sent to jail for 14 days

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Zubair's bail plea rejected, sent to jail for 14 days

Sunday, 03 July 2022 | Staff Reporter | New Delhi

A city court on Saturday rejected a bail plea of Alt News co-founded Mohammed Zubair and sent him to 14 days of judicial custody citing the nature and gravity of the offences against the accused and observing that the matter is at the initial stage of investigation. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria pronounced the judgement after the open court reconvened late in the evening.

 The Delhi Police had on Saturday produced Zubair before the court on expiry of his five-day custodial interrogation  in a case related to an objectionable tweet he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity. 

 "Since the matter is at the initial stage of investigation and overall facts and circumstances of the case and nature and gravity of the offences alleged against the accused, no ground for grant of bail is made out. Bail application of accused is accordingly dismissed. Accordingly, accused is remanded to judicial custody for 14 days," the CMM Sarvaria said in the order while rejected  his bail application.

In the order, the court also noted the submission of the public prosecutor that investigation was at initial stage and that there was every likelihood that police custody of the accused would be required.The judge considered addition of new sections during the course of investigation while rejecting the bail application.

On arguments that the seizure of laptop and mobile phone were illegal and affecting the privacy of the accused, the court observed that it was part of the police file that the mobile phone seized from the accused initially on June 27 was found to be having no data. In response to the accused's claim that his previous mobile was stolen, the court said, "Nothing was found on record to show that any mobile phone of the accused was lost, although said plea has been taken now in the present application."

The court further said that the accused's concern about sealing of electronic devices could not be decided at the present stage since the investigation regarding the data is at the initial stage and the electronic devices seized during execution of search warrants are still being looked into.

"As regards the plea that the alleged tweet of the accused for which accused has been arrested is of the year 2018 and part of Hindi movie 'Kissi Se Na Kehna' and so offences under sections 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc.) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) IPC are not made out, are of no assistance to the accused as Section 35 (Punishment for contravention of any provision of the) FC(R) Act have also been added and investigation qua it is also pending," the court said.

The judge had reserved the order earlier in the day after the hearing in the case in which the police did not seek immediate extension of his police custody and instead asked that he be sent to 14-day judicial custody. Earlier, opposing the bail application Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Atul Shrivastava, representing the Delhi Police, informed the court that Zubair “accepted payments through RazorPay from Pakistan, Syria, Australia, Singapore, UAE, which all require further investigation”.  He further informed that the police have invoked new offences under criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and violation FCRA act and they  may seek Zubair’s further custody in the future.

During the argument, Srivastava said  “If you accept something – donation, etc from a person of foreign country – then it’s a contravention. As per our CDR analysis, he has accepted through Razor gateway, from Pakistan, Syria, etc which all things require further investigation,” he  argued. Grover argued that the investigation has to be to prosecute a crime and not harass or bismerch someone. She said that the police were giving updates to the media and this was “a practice the court must deprecate”.

Appearing for Zubair, senior counsel Vrinda Grover argued that police misled the court as they had earlier released a statement stating that the funds were received by a media company.

Grover submitted that the entire exercise was malafide. "It all starts with a 2018. I am summoned under subterfuge. Is it a crime to change SIM or phone? You can't cast aspersions on someone being clever. Why I am saying malafide is writ large that FIR is of June 20. A Section 41A notice is issued on June 24. They then entice me to join investigation (in another case)," Grover said.

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