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Synopsis

A Court in Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday rejected the bail plea moved by Co-Founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair in a case against him for a tweet allegedly calling 3 Hindu seers 'Hate mongers'.

Judicial Magistrate First Class Judge Abhinav Srivastava said that there were not enough grounds to release Zubair on bail and there are chances of him repeating his acts if released on bail.

Significantly, Zubair has moved the Supreme Court with his plea challenging the Allahabad High Court order refusing to quash the First Information Report (FIR) lodged against him in this case. 

On Thursday, the Top Court agreed to hear the matter and a bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari will today hear the matter.

The FIR against Zubair was lodged on June 1, 2022 under Sections 295-A and 153A of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 at Police Station Khairabad, District Sitapur on basis of a complaint. 

The complainant had alleged that on May 27, he saw a tweet posted by Zubair where he used the offensive term "hate mongers" against the manager of revered religious place Badi Sanghat and National Patron of National Hindu Sher Sena, Mahant Bajrang Muni.

The complainant had also claimed that Zubair also insulted Hindu seer Yati Narasimha Nar Saraswati and Swami Anand Swaroop on his Twitter handle.

Zubair was produced before the Sitapur Court by the Delhi Police as he is in police remand in Delhi for 14 days in another case over his one tweet in the year 2018.

On Thursday, the Sitapur court granted Zubair's custody to Uttar Pradesh police from July 8 till July 14. The order was passed in the plea moved seeking Zubair's police custody remand for 12 days.

Case Title: State Of U.P. v. Mohammed Zubair