The Mumbai Sessions Court on Wednesday granted bail to advocate Vibhor Anand who was earlier arrested for spreading misinformation and levelling false claims around the deaths of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and the latter's former manager Disha Salian.
The bail was granted by the court on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 after Anand's lawyer admitted that his client was "repenting what he did and will tender an apology online."
Anand told the court that he had been influenced by various TV news channels, particularly 'R Bharat', whereby he heard the anchor making several claims regarding the death of Sushant Singh Rajput.
Notably, Anand mentioned it specifically that the anchor had made him believe certain unverified claims regarding Disha Salian and Sushant Singh Rajput's 'murder' and that it was not a case of suicide. The advocate, in a fit of repentance, said that he did not mean to defame the reputation of any person.
Anand, who claims to be a lawyer (also a former pilot and self-styled aviation expert) by profession, has apparently had a chequered past on the internet. From making sensational allegations on certain Bollywood actors and political bigwigs to dropping provocational statements regarding the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder (Nirbhaya case), Vibhor Anand has enjoyed his (in)fame amid the Twitter chin-wagging crowd.
A post on Reddit's r/BollyBlinds community by u/BornJinx elaborates a take on the backstory behind the internet notoriety of this 'lawyer'.
"Mr Anand has an interesting past : in 2012 he was calling Modi a murderer, but now calls himself deluded. Then he claimed that he fought for the Nirbhaya rapists for legal reasons and then lately claims that the girl's boyfriend who was also beaten up was the"biggest villain" and part of the rape. But "Delhi Police" was "helpless" and so they let him off," explains the Reddit thread.
On to the case at hand, Vibhor Anand had even said in a tweet that Sushant Singh Rajput's ex-manager Disha Salian was gangraped before her death.
A brief exploit of Vibhor Anand's notoriety had also been surmised in this thread by @zoo_bear on Twitter.
In an India divided by ill-tempered debates over free speech, now more than ever, the latest exploits of a popular internet rabble-rouser ought to make some of us contemplate deeply upon the state of the nation's public discourse.
