YouTuber Ajeet Bharti denied anticipatory bail by HC for remarks about Bhim Army chief

The Delhi High Court on Thursday denied anticipatory bail to YouTuber Ajeet Bharti in a case pertaining to his allegedly derogatory and casteist remarks about Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) MP Chandra Shekhar Aazad, Bar and Bench reported.

Aazad is the president of the party and the chief of the Dalit rights organisation Bhim Army.

The first information report against Bharti was filed based on a complaint by the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) on August 23.

The party alleged that Bharti made “caste-based, abusive, humiliating, sexually degrading and potentially inflammatory statements” about Aazad and about BR Ambedkar in a video where he spoke about the anti-reservation protests held at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in August.

On Thursday, Justice Saurabh Banerjee dismissed the anticipatory bail plea saying that as per the available material, Bharti had committed offences under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, reported Live Law.

On September 7, a sessions court had also dismissed Bharti’s anticipatory bail petition in the case. The YouTuber had moved the High Court against this.

In addition to the SC and ST Act, he had also been booked under the Information Technology Act and provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity between groups, and criminal intimidation.

The YouTuber had claimed that he had made the comments in response to...

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