Allahabad High Court allows Md Zubair's amendment application in plea challenging FIR

Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has allowed an amendment application filed by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in his writ petition challenging an FIR lodged against him dated October 8.

The amendment application was moved after the Gaziabad Police added new charge under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) to the FIR, which criminalises acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.

The order to allow the amendment was passed on Wednesday by a two-judge bench comprising Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Prashant Kumar.

The court fixed December 3 for hearing Zubair's plea seeking quashing of the October 8 FIR against him over alleged sharing of a video clip of controversial Dasna temple priest Yati Narsinghanand.

The FIR was filed in Ghaziabad district pursuant to a complaint lodged by Udita Tyagi, general secretary of the Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati Trust claiming Zubair posted a video clip of an old programme of Narsinghanand on October 3 with the intent to provoke violence against the priest by members of the Muslim community.

Hearing the matter on November 25, the high court had directed the investigation officer (IO) to file an affidavit by the next hearing clearly specifying the criminal sections invoked against Zubair.

In his reply filed in the court on Tuesday, the IO submitted that two new sections have been added to the FIR -- Section 152 of the BNS and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act.

The FIR against Zubair was initially lodged under Sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 228 (fabricating false evidence), 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 356(3) (defamation) and 351(2) (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the BNS.

Zubair has filed the present writ petition before the high court seeking quashing of the FIR and protection from coercive action.

In the plea, he claimed that his X post did not call for violence against Narsinghanand, and that he merely alerted the police authorities about the priest's actions and sought action as per the law, which cannot amount to promoting disharmony or ill-will between two classes of people.

He also challenged the invocation of the defamation provision under the BNS on the grounds that seeking action against Narsinghanand by sharing his own videos, which were already in the public domain, cannot amount to defamation.

The plea also stated that at the time of making "derogatory" remarks against Prophet Muhammad, Narsinghanand was on bail in another hate speech case, where his bail condition stipulated that he would not make any statements which may promote communal disharmony. PTI COR RAJ ARI