Journalist and YouTuber Ajeet Bharti’s video featured language that alluded to caste hierarchy, caste-based ideas of purity and the presumption that “upper” castes are superior to “lower” castes in relation to marriage and ancestry. The prima facie observation was made by a Delhi court while denying anticipatory bail to him on 7th September (Monday), reported Bar and Bench.
Bharti’s alleged remarks regarding Bhim Army chief and Nagina Lok Sabha MP Chandrashekhar Azad alias Ravan, who is a member of one of the scheduled caste communities, in a YouTube video gave rise to the case. According to the court, the comment that the latter should prove himself deserving of marrying an upper-caste girl is demeaning and explicitly indicates caste. Bharti has been booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler of the Patiala House Courts declared, “The assertion that the said MP 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/something more/worthy of marrying a girl in upper caste.”
The court initially found that the elements of the SC/ST Act’s section 3(1)(r) offence, humiliating, insulting or using caste-based insults against SC/ST members in public, were present in the matter. It came to the conclusion that the statutory bar under section 18, which prohibits courts from providing anticipatory bail in such instances, would apply.
However, the court noted that the incident seemed to have happened spontaneously in response to a statement and custodial interrogation was not necessary. Hence, it might have contemplated giving relief to Bharti had the SC/ST Act violations not been identified. The judge also highlighted that the order’s pronouncements were limited to assessing the anticipatory bail application and did not constitute a judgement on Bharti’s culpability or innocence, the veracity of the charges or the full context of the video.
“This is not an exercise in appreciating evidence or determining guilt, but a threshold enquiry to ascertain whether the statutory bar under sections 18/18A even arises for consideration,” he pointed out.
Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, who appeared on behalf of Bharti, argued that sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) were not prima facie drawn because no identified SC/ST member was proven to have been insulted in public and the complainant was neither present nor personally offended or frightened.
He maintained that the comments were hypothetical and metaphorical rather than a statement about any specific or real woman. Dehadrai further contended that the accusations could not be assumed against Bharti at the pre-arrest stage and could only be evaluated after taking into account the whole, unaltered video and its context.
The court emphasised that Bharti’s utterances constituted “invocation of caste names, not as a stray or quarrelsome aside but as the organising device” of his response after reviewing the case. After deciding that elements of a crime under section 3(1)(r) were established against him, the submission for anticipatory bail was rejected.
On 23rd August, Bharti was named in a first information report (FIR) filed in accordance with the SC/ST Act, section 67 of the IT Act and sections 196(1)(c) and 351(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Balakram Bauddh, the Delhi state president of Ravan’s “Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram),” lodged the complaint over his video, “SB79: Reservation Hatao Andolan Nautanki & More | Saptahik Bakaiti.”
According to the allegation, Bharti reportedly used abusive and caste-based language, made offensive comments about BR Ambedkar and MP Ravan, invoked sexually demeaning language against women and issued threats. The FIR stated that he was reacting to a person who mocked that caste-based reservation would end if he married his sister to the parliamentarian.
