Apologise to Md. Zubair for offensive comment: Delhi HC directs ‘X’ user

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed an ‘X’ user to apologise to Alt-News co-founder Mohammad Zubair for his “offensive” comment against him on the social media platform.

Observing that people should be temperate on the social media and apologise if they get “carried away”, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani asked the user to publish his apology on his handle on ‘X’, formerly called ‘Twitter’, in one week while “giving context of the offensive tweet” and retain the post for two months.

The court, which was dealing with Zubair’s petition to quash an FIR registered against him following his online spat with this social media user, noted that the user has expressed regret before the city police for calling the petitioner “offensive communal names” and claimed that there was no malice to hurt or offend Zubair.

“He has chosen the unfortunate words. Let him put it (apology) out on his Twitter handle...We want people to be temperate on social media and if you get carried away then first thing you have to do is at least apologise,” Justice Bhambhani said.

“If he has expressed regret and said ‘niyat nahi thi’, let him atone for that,” he added.

In 2020, the Delhi Police had registered the FIR against Zubair for allegedly threatening and torturing a girl child on the social media platform after he responded to the Twitter user who was using a picture with his minor daughter as a display picture on the platform.

Zubair described the allegation levelled against him in the FIR as “an absolutely frivolous complaint”. Subsequently, while the police closed the case against Zubair, the court directed the investigating agency to state what action it took against the Twitter user for his offensive tweet, which amounted to hate speech”, against the journalist.

During the hearing, the counsel for the police said the investigating officer found “no real basis” to register a case against the user in light of his statement and has left the matter to court. The user told the police in his statement that he has respect for all religions and he has good relations with members of all religious communities. The court reviewed other posts by the user and stated, “this type of person should be barred from social media.” However, after considering the user’s apology to the police, the proceedings were closed. The court emphasized that mistakes on a platform should be addressed there, aiming to end the “Twitter war.”

It added that “social media was an anarchic medium” and prohibited Zubair from retweeting the apology or using it to sue the user. The High Court had previously directed the Delhi Police not to take coercive action against Zubair and instructed Twitter India to cooperate in the investigation, while the NCPCR criticised the police’s handling of

the case. With agency inputs