The Delhi Police had informed the Court that Zubair had told them that the laptop and mobile phone used by him to post the tweet were at his home in Bengaluru.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday (13th Jan) directed Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair to approach the trial court for the return of his electronic devices that were seized by Delhi Police from his home in 2022.
This case revolves around a tweet posted by Zubair in 2018.
In July 2022, Zubair had gone to the High Court, challenging a decision by a Patiala House Court that had sent him to police custody and allowed the seizure of his laptop. Zubair was later granted bail by a trial court in the case.
BRIEF FACTS:
The case initiates from a tweet Zubair shared, which contained an image from a 1983 Hindi movie. According to the Delhi Police, the image shared by Zubair was offensive to a specific religious community and highly provocative in nature.
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, who was handling the case, disposed of Zubair’s plea, allowing him the option to approach the trial court with an appropriate application for the release of his devices.
She said, “It is not specified as to which devices or documents the petitioner is referring to which have been seized by the respondent that are beyond the allegations in FIR. During arguments it was observed that the counsel for petitioner is referring to the mobile phone of the petitioner. In this regard, he may move appropriate application before the concerned area Magistrate who will deal with it as per law.”
The Delhi Police had informed the Court that Zubair had told them that the laptop and mobile phone used by him to post the tweet were at his home in Bengaluru.
However, Zubair argued that the police had unlawfully raided his residence and seized the laptop and hard disk, which he used for his fact-checking work. He also denied making any disclosure statement to the investigating officer or any other police officer during his police custody or at any point during the investigation.
In his plea, Zubair stated that he no longer had the mobile phone he had used to post the tweet, as it had been lost. He had filed a lost article report with the local police to report the same. Zubair further argued that his tweet clearly mentioned that it had been posted from an Android device (mobile phone), which had no connection to any laptop.
Case Title: Mohammed Zubair v. State of NCT of Delhi
