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YouTuber and commentator Ajeet Bharti has moved the Delhi High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a case under Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.  

The matter is likely to be listed next week.

Bharti has challenged a trial court order passed on September 07 denying him bail.

Vide the impugned order, the ASJ observed that Bharti's remarks concerning the caste and marriageability of a sitting Member of Parliament prima facie disclosed an offence under Section 3(1)(r) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

The case arose from an episode of Bharti's self-titled programme, uploaded on his verified social media account and YouTube on August 22, which allegedly contained casteist, derogatory and humiliating remarks concerning members of the Scheduled Caste community, Chandra Shekhar Azad (a sitting MP from Nagina) and Dr BR Ambedkar.

The specific remarks were made in response to a social-media comment concerning Bharti's sister's alleged marriage to the MP.

Denying anticipatory bail to Bharti, the trial court judge had noted that the material placed on record showed that Bharti's remarks repeatedly invoked caste names while discussing the marriageability of the named MP.

The Court had also taken note of the statement that it was not sufficient for the person to be a “Chamar and an MP” for a marriage to be arranged and that the MP would first have to “make himself worthy” to seek the hand of a woman from a “Savarna” family. It held that this could not, at the prima facie stage, be characterised as merely generic abuse or a stray caste reference.

“It is language that invokes caste hierarchy and marriageability directly, touching the very notion identified in Shajan Skaria (paragraph 62) as the paradigm of "intent to humiliate" under Section 3(1)(r): caste-based notions of purity and the assumed superiority of "upper" over "lower" castes in matters of alliance and lineage,” the Court haf said.

It had added that the assertion that the MP in question should make himself worthy of marrying an upper caste girl, is a specific reference to caste and humiliating as to why a person fit to be married to anyone in SC / ST community has to be something extra or something more or worthy of marrying a girl in upper caste.

Bharti has publicly defended himself saying that he did not make any casteist remarks in his video but was responding to offensive comments against his mother/sister.

The FIR has been lodged under provisions of the SC/ST Act and Sections 196(1)(c) and 351(3) (aggravated criminal intimidation) BNS as well as Information Technology Act.

Title: Ajeet Bharti v. State

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