Delhi Court: YouTuber Ajeet Bharti's Remarks Prima Facie Attract SC/ST Act Offence

A Delhi court has observed that the language used by YouTuber Ajeet Bharti in his video invoked caste hierarchy, caste-based notions of purity and the assumed superiority of "upper" over "lower" castes in matters of marriage and lineage.Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler of the Patiala House Courts made the prima facie observation in September 7 order while denying anticipatory bail to Bharti in a case registered under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act [SC/ST Act]. The case arose from Bharti’s comments in a YouTube video about Member of Parliament (MP) Chandrashekhar Azad who belongs to one of the scheduled caste communities.Judge Laler said that Bharti’s assertion that Azad should make himself worthy of marrying an upper-caste girl is a specific reference to caste and is humiliating. “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 observed.The Court prima facie found that the ingredients of the offence under Section 3(1)(r) of the SC/ST Act (humiliate, insult or use caste-based slurs against members of SC/ST in public view) were attracted. Therefore, the statutory bar under Section 18, which bars courts from granting anticipatory bail in such cases,