The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a petition of fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of Alt News website, after his counsel Colin Gonsalves sought urgent hearing, claiming that his life is under threat.
He also pleaded for quashing of an FIR registered against him at Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh. He was arrested on June 17 by Delhi Police for his alleged Hinduphobia tweets and insulting Hindu seers and violation of the Foreign Currency Regulation Act (FCRA).
The Supreme Court bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and J K Maheshwari agreed to list Zubair’s plea for hearing the very next day on Friday.
Zubair is known in the media circles as the lone campaigner against the bogus reports in Indian newspapers and the TV news channels.
He has come to the top court after the Allahabad High Court dismissed his writ petition challenging an FIR registered against him for using derogatory language against Hindu seers.
The case is based on a tweet he had put out against Mahant Bajrang Muni, Yati Narsinghanand and Swami Anand Swaroop referring to them as 'hate mongers'.
Zubair is already in judicial custody in a case registered by the Delhi Police which has booked him for promoting enmity among religious groups. This case was based on a tweet put out by him in 2018.
The tweet contained a screenshot from a movie from the 1980s - Kissi se na kehna.
