Delhi High Court has ordered one Jagdish Singh to post an apology on his X account for calling Alt News co-founder and journalist Mohammed Zubair a “jihadi” on the social media platform, Bar and Bench reported.  

In the petition filed by Zubair in 2020, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani said that the apology should be on Singh’s X handle for at least two months and should read, “I regret making the above comment, which was not made with any malice or intention to hurt or offend Mohammed Zubair.”

During the hearing, Justice Bhambhani also examined other posts made by Singh and remarked that “such people should be barred from social media”. 

On April 18, 2020, Singh targeted Zubair on X, saying: “Once a jihadi is always jihadi.” Subsequently, he also filed a complaint under the POCSO Act accusing Zubair of “sexual harassment of his granddaughter”. The journalist had posted Singh’s X profile picture, which also featured his granddaughter, calling him out for “abusing people”. He had blurred the face of the granddaughter.    

The court disposed of Zubair’s plea seeking the quashing of the FIR, in which he was already given a clean chit by the police. Earlier, the court had also pulled up the police for failing to act against Singh in connection with his “hate speech”. The police had said that the post does not cause fear or alarm to the public.

In the judgement issued on Thursday, the court directed Zubair not to retweet Singh’s apology or use it for civil or criminal proceedings.

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