On Monday, the Delhi High Court refused to provide YouTuber Ajeet Bharti with immediate protection from arrest. This decision comes in response to a case against him under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, commonly known as the SC/ST Act. The case involves alleged derogatory remarks made by Bharti about Chandrashekhar Azad, a parliamentarian and leader of the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram).
The matter would be heard next on Wednesday. Justice Banerjee said this while the court was considering adjourning a plea challenging a lower court’s September 7 order, rejecting Bharti’s anticipatory bail for Wednesday in view of non-availability of the complete copy of the First Information Report (FIR). The lower court prima facie found that Section 3(1)(r) of the SC/ST Act, which deals with intentionally insulting or intimidating a member of an SC/ST community with intent to humiliate in a place within public view, was attracted. It held that the statutory bar under Section 18 of the SC/ST Act, which restricts anticipatory bail in cases attracting the Act, would apply.
“Day after tomorrow [Wednesday], we will see,” Justice Saurabh Banerjee told Bharti’s counsel as he urged interim protection from arrest. The lower court rejected Bharti’s anticipatory bail, observing that the language allegedly used in a YouTube video invoked caste hierarchy, notions of caste-based purity, and the perceived superiority of “upper” castes over “lower” castes in matters of marriage and lineage. It observed that Bharti’s statement that Azad should make himself “worthy” of marrying an upper-caste woman constituted a specific caste reference and was prima facie humiliating.
