The Delhi High Court on Thursday ordered a man to post an apology on his X handle for calling fact-checker and Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair a “jihadi”, Bar and Bench reported.
The court directed the man, Jagdish Singh, to post the apology within a week and retain it on his X profile for at least two months.
A bench of Justice Anup Bhambhani directed that the apology should read: “I regret making the above comment, which was not made with any malice or intention to hurt or offend Mohammed Zubair”.
The fact-checker had in 2020 responded to a derogatory message from Singh on X by asking if his granddaughter knew about his “part time job of abusing people on social media”.
In his tweet, Zubair had posted Singh’s display picture, featuring a girl who appeared to be his granddaughter. The journalist had blurred the girl’s face in the image.
Singh, however, accused the Alt News co-founder of harassing his granddaughter online. “Once a jihadi, always a jihadi,” he had said on April 18, 2020 on X, then known as Twitter.
The court, while directing Singh on Thursday to post the apology, told Zubair not to retweet the post, or use the apology in any related civil or criminal proceedings, reported Bar and Bench.
Bhambhani also disposed of the fact-checker’s petition demanding that a case against him under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act be quashed, Live Law reported. The case pertained to allegations that Zubair harassed Singh’s granddaughter.
The Delhi Police told the High Court in May 2022 that Zubair’s post did not constitute any cognisable offence.
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