New Delhi, Sep 24 The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to grant anticipatory bail to YouTuber Ajeet Bharti in a case over alleged casteist remarks against Nagina MP Chandrashekhar Azad, observing that there was an explicit invocation of ideas of caste superiority and prima facie use of caste-based slurs to humiliate the Bhim Army Chief.
Justice Saurabh Banerjee dismissed Bharti’s pre-arrest bail plea and held that a prima facie case under the provisions of the SC/ST Act was made out against him, which bars granting anticipatory bail.
Azad, in a complaint to the Delhi Police, alleged that Bharti made caste-based, abusive, derogatory and humiliating statements against him, the members of the Scheduled Caste community and B R Ambedkar on social media.
The FIR was registered under provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Information Technology Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
In the 16-page judgement, Justice Banerjee took note of the “repeated references” to caste-based names or slurs to state that Bharti’s remarks were “not general or reckless/stray.”
“They were clear references to caste, and explicit invocation of ideas of caste superiority prevalent in society, that too, with reference to the institution of marriage, which also represents age-old notions of the hierarchy of the castes,” the court observed.
“A case under Sections 3(1)(r)/3(1)(s) of the SC/ ST Act to be prima facie made out against the applicant, considering the statutory bar of Sections 18/18A(2) SC/ ST Act read with clear legal position as elucidated above, the present application seeking grant of anticipatory bail, being not maintainable, is dismissed,” the court concluded.
The court had on September 16 reserved its order on the plea after hearing submissions from Bharti’s counsel, the Delhi Police and complainant Azad.
Bharti had approached the high court after a trial court here refused to grant him pre-arrest bail in the case on September 7. The plea was opposed by the Delhi Police and the complainant.
The police counsel had contended that the words allegedly used by Bharti directly insulted a particular caste, while Azad’s lawyer opposed the anticipatory bail plea, saying the purported remarks were derogatory and intentional.
Bharti’s counsel had said the remarks concerning Azad were made in the context of an exchange on social media and that the YouTuber had not intended to target the Lok Sabha MP because of his caste.
The court rejected Bharti’s defence that the remarks were made only after being provoked by someone online, stating that provocation cannot act as a shield when he was “well-aware” of what he was saying.
The judge added that Bharti also did not issue any subsequent “clarification/explanation/retraction/apologies” for the remarks.
“The applicant, being well aware of the named individual, his status, position, caste, gender, and the like, chose to make all the remarks he did within the context of what he was talking about,” the court said.
“This court is of the prima facie view that the present FIR clearly discloses that the applicant used/abused the named individual using caste-names/slurs, which were with a view to humiliate the named individual,” it said.
The prosecutor contended that the words were allegedly used by Bharti on a social media platform, and not within closed walls. She argued that the ingredients to attract the SC/ST Act were present and the anticipatory bail plea was not maintainable.
(PTI News)
