New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Friday, May 26 asked the Delhi police as to what action it has taken against a Twitter user who had posted offensive tweets against Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair.
The high court has asked the police to file a status report on this matter within six weeks, LiveLaw reported.
“You went hammer and tongs against him [Zubair]. But the case has now ended in a whimper, as it should have… because there was no evidence. But what action have you [police] taken against this man?” the high court said.
The matter will be next heard on September 14.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani said that the Supreme Court has repeatedly called for strict action against hate speeches and has said that even if there is no complaint, police must register a suo motu case.
The high court made these remarks while hearing Zubair’s plea for quashing a first information report registered against him after he responded to a Twitter user who abused and demeaned him and even left communally charged comments on his page.
Zubair responded to the man, who was using a picture of himself with his granddaughter as a display picture on the platform.
In his tweet, Zubair had blurred the face of the minor girl, and wrote: “Hello…Does your cute grand daughter know about your part-time job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you to change your profile pic (sic).”
The user then filed multiple FIRs, accusing him of causing cyber sexual harassment of his grand daughter.
An FIR was registered against Zubair under Section 12 (punishment for committing sexual harassment upon a child) of the POCSO Act, Section 509B (sexual harassment by electronic mode) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Sections 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) and 67A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act) of the Information Technology Act.
In this case, which occurred in September 2020, Zubair was granted interim protection from arrest.
The Delhi Police had in May 2022 filed an affidavit before the high court saying it has not named Zubair in the chargesheet because it did not find any criminality against him.
