Allahabad HC refuses to quash FIR against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has refused to quash an FIR lodged against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair for calling Hindu seers Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop "hate mongers" on Twitter.

Dismissing his plea, the vacation bench of Justices Ramesh Sinha and Ajay Kumar Srivastava observed, "The perusal of the record makes out, prima facie, offences against the petitioner at this stage and there appears to be a sufficient ground for investigation in the case."

An FIR was lodged against the fact-checking website co-founder on June 1 under Section 295 (A) of the IPC and Section 67 of the IT Act at the Khairabad police station in Sitapur district for deliberately "outraging religious feelings" of the seers.

Zubair challenged the FIR, pleading that his tweet did not insult or attempted to insult religious beliefs of a class and the case has been lodged just to cause "harassment".

Opposing his petition, the state counsel argued that Zubair is a habitual offender, who has four criminal cases registered against him.

Turning down Zubair's plea, the Bench said the submissions advanced by the petitioner call for determination on questions of fact, which may be adequately discerned either through proper investigation or adjudicated upon only by the trial court.