The Delhi High Court yesterday asked the Delhi police what action it had taken against a Twitter user who had posted “offensive tweets” about Alt News cofounder Mohammad Zubair.

“What did you do about this gentleman, Jagdish Singh?” Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani said. “My question is, if you found nothing against this man” – referring to Zubair – “what did you do about the person who put the offensive tweets?”

The court was hearing Zubair’s plea challenging an FIR filed against him in 2020. In August that year, one Jagdish Singh from Chhattisgarh had replied to Zubair’s tweet calling him “lavde ka fact-checker”.

Zubair replied by sharing Singh’s Twitter photo, which showed him standing alongside a minor girl. Zubair pixelated the girl’s face and wrote, “Does your cute granddaughter know about your part time job of abusing people on social media?”

Two FIRs were then filed against Zubair in Delhi and Raipur under the IT Act and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for purportedly “threatening and torturing a girl child on Twitter”. Zubair approached the Delhi High Court to quash the FIR.

According to Bar and Bench, the Delhi police filed an affidavit stating it “did not find any criminality” against Zubair and so did not name him in the chargesheet. 

Subsequently, Justice Bhambhani said, “Somebody starts a storm and you just say this person’s name is not in chargesheet...I want to see if things are coming to a logical closure.” The matter was then listed for March 13.

When the FIRs were filed in 2020, Jagdish Singh had defended himself for abusing Zubair. “When I sit with friends, we use expletives. Bhenchod, bhosdike, lavde ke baal – ye sab toh chalta hai. I did not know Zubair would take it to heart.”

And Singh’s Twitter feed has other “friendly” abuse directed towards personalities like Divya Spandana and Shehla Rashid. Read this report in Newslaundry to find out more.