Hours after Mohammed Zubair was released from Delhi's Tihar Jail on Wednesday, 20 July, his colleague and Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha took to Twitter to share a photo with him, saying that the journalist would be "back real soon."
Sinha further wrote that Zubair wanted to convey his gratitude to all those who had supported him in the last few weeks.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted Zubair interim bail, saying that the "exercise of the power of arrest must be pursued sparingly."
Zubair, who was held in custody for 24 days on allegations of hate speech, flashed the victory sign as he left in a car after his release from Tihar Jail at around 9 pm on Wednesday evening.
The Cases Against Zubair
Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on 27 June for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets.
Zubair was held in police and judicial custody after seven FIRs were lodged against him in different parts of Uttar Pradesh for posting tweets that allegedly hurt religious sentiments. The UP Police had also set up a Special Investigation Team to probe the allegations.
On Wednesday, a Supreme Court bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and AS Bopanna ordered the disbanding of the SIT and transfer of all the cases to Delhi, saying that there was "no reason or justification for the deprivation of his (Zubair's) liberty to persist any further." The Supreme Court bench also refused to restrain Zubair from tweeting in the future as sought by the UP government.
"Can a lawyer be restrained from arguing?" the bench asked, "How can a journalist be restrained from tweeting and writing?" "If he violates any law by tweeting or for that matter any citizen speaking in public or private, then he can be proceeded as per the law," the bench said in a lengthy order passed after a more than two-hour hearing.
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