The Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms issued a statement today expressing concerns about the conduct of the police in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in Mohammed Zubair’s case.

The group slammed the Delhi police for “revealing” the contents of a court order on Zubair’s bail plea to the media “more than five hours prior to the order being pronounced”.

“It appears that the Delhi police and the magistrate had a prior backdoor agreement outside of court,” the statement said.

This had taken place on July 2, when journalists and news organisations relied on KPS Malhotra, head of the Delhi police’s cyber crime division, to “break” the news. The court order was only pronounced hours later and it was, as the statement said, “exactly what the police had announced earlier”.

CJAR criticised the explanation later offered by Malhotra as “bizarre”, pointing out that “no effort was made to correct the record when media outlets flashed this information”.

Demanding “strict action” against the Delhi police, CJAR said “the communication between the police and the judge and the perceived influence of the police over the judicial process, needs a thorough independent probe, that must be conducted forthwith by the Delhi High Court.”

Zubair, cofounder of Alt News, was arrested on June 27 over a tweet he had posted in 2018. An anonymous Twitter handle had complained that a satirical post made by the journalist four years ago and referencing a trope from a 1983 film was a “direct insult of Hindus”.

CJAR also noted the FIR filed against Zubair on June 1 in Uttar Pradesh for describing Yati Narasinghanand, Mahant Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop as “hatemongers” in a Twitter post.

“We demand that the constitutional right to liberty of Mr Zubair be upheld,” the statement said, “and the ill-conceived charges against him be dropped immediately by the Delhi and UP police.”