“Cannot go by tweets. You have to go by the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC),” a court here told the prosecutors on Thursday as it took up the bail application filed by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in a case registered against him for a 2018 tweet.
Noting that the Delhi police had not recorded the statement of even one person who was offended by the said tweet, Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala asked, “How many victims’ statements have you recorded till date? Not even one? You must have recorded statements of such number of persons who were offended. We cannot go by tweets, you have to go by CrPC and record statements.”
To this, Special Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava replied, “During the course of investigation, we will.”
Mr. Zubair was arrested by the Delhi police on June 27 for the 2018 tweet which posted an image from the 1983 film ‘Kissi Se Na Kehna’, which showed a fictional hotel’s name being changed from “Honeymoon” hotel to “Hanuman” hotel with the text: “Before 2014: Honeymoon hotel/After 2014: Hanuman hotel”. The police have alleged that this tweet incited hatred among two communities.
The court’s remarks came as advocate Vrinda Grover began her arguments for bail on behalf of Mr. Zubair, pointing out that the case was registered by the IFSO of the Special Cell here, based on the solitary tweet of an anonymous Twitter account, which claimed that the tweet by Mr. Zubair was hurting sentiments of Hindus.
On this anonymous Twitter account reviving the four-year-old tweet, Ms. Grover said, “What is this mischief? Who is this person? Is this person an Indian national? Who is trying to create unrest in my country?”
When the judge asked whether the police had recorded the statement of the person using this account, the SPP said they had not done this yet, prompting the court to ask if the police had recorded the statement of anyone who claimed to be offended by the tweet.
During the course of the hearing on Thursday, the court also sought to see the scene of the movie from where the said image was taken, following which it was played in court.
Payment gateway
Countering the now-added charge under Section 35 of the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act, Ms. Grover submitted that Alt News had declared in bold letters that they do not accept foreign remittances and that their payment gateway, Razorpay, had also issued a public statement, stating that the company was “not enabled” to receive any payments other than domestic ones.
She went on to submit that the prosecution and the Delhi police had alleged violation of the FCRA based on IP addresses and international phone numbers of Alt News donors as received from Razorpay, but that these details do not disclose any information to establish whether the transaction originated from a “foreign source” as defined under the FCRA.
The Delhi police submitted that the “foreign source” they were referring to was “citizens of a foreign country” as defined under the legislation. They went on to claim that “541 foreign nationals have donated” and that “since February this year, ₹56 lakh has been received in violation of the FCRA”. They went on to say that phone numbers with extensions of countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other countries had also been identified.
Opposing these, Ms. Grover said it was unfortunate that the prosecution was repeating the names of certain Muslim and Islamic countries, adding it should not matter if the money came from the U.S. or Pakistan.
“I was told in court that there is a +92 number (Pak) in the excel sheet of contributions. It turns out that the column being referred to here does not even contain phone numbers. The ‘92’ they seem to have found is the formula for computing on excel,” she continued.
Refuting this, SPP Srivastava insisted on “foreign IP addresses” being present.
Ms. Grover rebutted, “If I am an Indian citizen with an Indian bank account and living abroad, I will still have a foreign IP address. IP address is not the relevant test here. What is relevant would be the bank account, PAN (Permanent Account Number), and citizenship.”
The Delhi police submitted before the court that they have now issued notices to banks and sought information on the bank accounts and other details of the donors based on the transactions and Unified Payments Interface IDs (UPI IDs) and are awaiting responses from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on this as well.
To this, Ms. Grover submitted that this cannot be a reason to keep Mr. Zubair in jail because any investigation with respect to this has to be conducted electronically and none of the data the police are seeking is with the journalist. She also submitted that in other sections of the IPC invoked against Mr. Zubair, “even a prima facie is not made out”.
Pronounce order today
When the court asked the prosecution why they needed Mr. Zubair to be in jail to continue their investigation, SPP Srivastava said, “We have noticed some people with names like “Gumnaam” making donations. If he is released, this “Gumnaam” will remain “Gumnaam”. We need to know who this is… He (Zubair) might influence witnesses… He is a manipulator.”
After hearing arguments from both sides, the court reserved its order on the bail application and will pronounce the order at 2 p.m. on Friday.
