Individuals must not be punished solely on the basis of allegations, Supreme Court said
Mohammed Zubair, Alt News fact-checker, was released from jail last week, 23 days after his arrest over a 2018 tweet. The Supreme Court had only released the operative portion of the order on July 20. The full judgment copy has been uploaded today.
Following are the top observations by the Supreme Court from Mohammed Zubair's bail order:
He (Mohammed Zubair) is trapped in a vicious cycle of the criminal process where the process has itself become the punishment. The machinery of criminal justice has been relentlessly employed against the petitioner.
It also appears that certain dormant FIRs from 2021 were activated as certain new FIRs were registered, thereby compounding the difficulties faced by the petitioner.
Arrest is not meant to be and must not be used as a punitive tool because it results in one of the gravest possible consequences emanating from criminal law: the loss of personal liberty.
Individuals must not be punished solely on the basis of allegations, and without a fair trial.
When the power to arrest is exercised without application of mind and without due regard to the law, it amounts to an abuse of power.
The criminal law and its processes ought not to be instrumentalized as a tool of harassment.
(Supreme Court on UP government's request for imposing bail condition that he must not tweet) The courts while imposing bail conditions must balance the liberty of the accused and the necessity of a fair trial. While doing so, conditions that would result in the deprivation of rights and liberties must be eschewed.
Merely because the complaints filed against the petitioner arise from posts that were made by him on a social media platform, a blanket anticipatory order preventing him from tweeting cannot be made.
A blanket order directing the petitioner to not express his opinion - an opinion that he is rightfully entitled to hold as an active participating citizen - would be disproportionate to the purpose of imposing conditions on bail. The imposition of such a condition would tantamount to a gag order against the petitioner. Gag orders have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech.
According to the petitioner, he is a journalist who is the co-founder of a fact checking website and he uses Twitter as a medium of communication to dispel false news and misinformation in this age of morphed images, clickbait, and tailored videos. Passing an order restricting him from posting on social media would amount to an unjustified violation of the freedom of speech and expression, and the freedom to practice his profession.
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