Closure Report Filed In POCSO Case Against Mohammed Zubair Over 2020 Tweet, Chhattisgarh High Court Informed

The Chhattisgarh State Government today officially informed the Chhattisgarh High Court that the state police have submitted a closure report in a POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) case filed against Alt-News Co-founder Mohammed Zubair, related to a tweet he made in 2020. The state counsel made the submission before a bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Arvind Kumar Verma, prompting the division bench to dispose of the plea filed by Zubair, in which he had sought the quashing of the FIR lodged under the IT Act, IPC, and POCSO Act. For context, the case pertained to a tweet made by Zubair, in which he shared the profile picture of one Jagdish Singh, showing Singh standing with his minor granddaughter, and asked if it was appropriate for Singh to use derogatory language (including calling Zubair a 'Jihadi') in replies while using a profile picture featuring his granddaughter. "Hello Jagdish Singh. Does your cute granddaughter know about your part time job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you to change your profile pic.", Zubair had allegedly commented, after blurring the face of the minor girl. Following this, Singh made a complaint to the National Council for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), upon which the NCPCR wrote to Delhi police and Raipur police, alleging that Zubair's tweet amounted to torture and harassment of a minor girl. Based on the NCPCR mail, the Raipur police registered an FIR alleging offences under section 509B (sexual harassment by electronic mode) of the Indian Penal Code, section 12 (punishment for committing sexual harassment upon a child) of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and section 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Challenging this FIR, Zubair approached the High Court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). It was the submission of Zubair's counsels that the FIR was an abuse of process of law and that the tweet cannot attract any of the offences alleged by any stretch of imagination. In October 2020, the High Court had ordered that no coercive action should be taken against Zubair. In August last year, the Delhi High Court directed Singh to put an apology on X Corp, formerly Twitter, for posting an “offensive tweet” against Zubair by calling him a “jihadi” in 2020. This order was passed after Delhi Police filed a status report in the HC stating that no case had been registered against Singh for the offensive comment against Zubair. The Delhi Police had filed the response after it was pulled up by the court last year over no action taken against Singh.

Closure Report Filed In POCSO Case Against Mohammed Zubair Over 2020 Tweet, Chhattisgarh High Court Informed

Sparsh Upadhyay

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