‘Don’t go by tweets, go by CrPC’: Delhi court to prosecutor during Alt News co-founder Zubair’s bail hearing

Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala of Patiala House Courts will pronounce the order on Friday at 2 pm.

His lawyer, Advocate Vrinda Grover, while arguing the case, had told the court that an anonymous Twitter account had dug out Zubair’s tweet and said that the identity of the person behind this Twitter account was not yet revealed.

“Much has been said that I am creating unrest. The question is what is this mischief at play? Who this person is has still not been known. We don’t know if this Twitter handle is an Indian Twitter handle. Who is creating unrest in my country?” Grover told the court.

The judge asked Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) Atul Shrivastava if police recorded the statement of the person behind the Twitter account, who replied that the police had details of the Twitter account but has not yet recorded the statement.

The judge said, “You haven’t recorded the statement yet? How many victims’ statements have you recorded? You must have recorded statement of persons who felt offended. How many statements you recorded till date? We cannot go by a tweet, you have to go by CrPC. You are a prosecuting agency.”

Grover also argued on the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act charges against Zubair. Police had added section 35 of the FCRA to the FIR against him. During the bail hearing on July 2, the prosecutor had said an investigation was underway into donations Zubair allegedly received from abroad including Pakistan.

Grover had argued that “FCRA has no application in this case” and was “belatedly added” because the case was not able to withstand the IPC sections that was added before. “No foreign contribution or foreign source money has been received by me either in personal account or Pravda media company account. I am making a self-declaration from the time Pravda has been registered. I do not have FCRA, therefore, I do not take foreign contributions,” Grover told the court.

Grover argued that “it doesn’t matter if the money is coming from USA or Pakistan”. “To name certain countries is unfortunate. We have a foreign policy, let us leave this to that domain. Some Muslim countries were mentioned in the court hearing. It is unfortunate. What is the premise in which certain countries are named? We must catch someone who is violating the law. I have not taken any foreign contribution. Unfounded, unsubstantiated submissions made by the SPP. Let it be demonstrated what money has come,” Grover told the court.

On the prosecutor’s allegation that the use of a +92 number, which is a code of Pakistan, was found, Grover said, “+92 is there in the Excel sheet where they have shown the contributions. It’s not code of Pakistan, but it’s a formula for computation in Excel.”

On allegations that IP addresses of foreign countries were used, Grover said, “If I am an Indian citizen and have an Indian bank and I’m living abroad, I can have an IP address… I can be a scholar, or maybe on deputation from my company. When I will be using a computer there, my IP address won’t be an Indian IP address.”

APP Shrivastava argued that that the tweet is still existing and, thus, its repercussions and effects continue. “She (Vrinda Grover) will argue that this was a Hindi film. But he (Zubair) wrote before 2014 and after 2014 in his tweet. They wanted to say 2014 is the year Modi had come…. To incite people of the other side and create ill will,” Shrivastava argued.

He submitted that Rs 56 lakh has come from Razorpay in this case and a notice was sent to Razorpay. The prosecutor said that Zubair accepted payments and till date has not disclosed the identity of the persons who transferred the money.

Srivastava argued that Zubair’s intention is not to have something from a movie and paste it. “He is not as simple as my learned friend has projected, that it was a joke. It was a planned way. And you’ve added these things on post just to attract such type of people,” the prosecutor submitted.