The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered that no coercive action will be taken against chairperson of the Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) Zafarul Islam Khan, who is facing a sedition case over a tweet posted last month, until June 22.
The court order came on Mr. Khan’s anticipatory bail plea.
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Mr. Khan (72), who has been the DMC chief since July 2017, said in his plea filed through advocate Vrinda Grover that he suffered from heart disease and hypertension and was highly susceptible to COVID-19 infection, which can have fatal consequences for a person of his age and health condition.
On April 30 last, the police registered a case under section 124A (sedition) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) against Mr. Khan on a complaint received from a Delhi resident, who alleged that he (Mr. Khan) has ‘made a social media post on Twitter and Facebook [on April 28] and the contents of the post are provocative, intended to cause disharmony and create rift in society’.
In his petition, Mr. Khan said the FIR against him was “misconceived, being made on a misrepresentation of facts and an erroneous, untenable reading of the law”.
Laptop given to police
On Monday, the police said Mr. Khan submitted his laptop to a police team probing the case against him for his “controversial” social media post.
Mr. Khan was served a notice to give the device that was used to post the message. He provided the laptop and it had been sent to a forensic science laboratory, the police said.
Mr. Khan had defended his social media post, saying it was on the plight of the minority population that had been targeted by certain elements in society, and further acknowledged the role of the international fraternity in raising concerns regarding the well-being of Indian Muslims.
He had said, “The social media post however only refers to ‘Hindutva bigots’, which is not a religious group or community, but instead refers in this context to persons on social media posting hate speech and propagating communal disharmony”.
The High Court has directed the authorities to take a call on the action to be initiated against him in a reasonable time while disposing of a petition seeking his removal from the post.
The court was informed that on May 8, the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi issued a show-cause notice to Mr. Khan as to why action be not initiated against him.
