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

A Delhi court on Monday rejected YouTuber Ajeet Bharti’s petition seeking anticipatory bail 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 Bharti made “caste-based, abusive, humiliating, sexually degrading and potentially inflammatory statements” about the Nagina MP and about BR Ambedkar in a video where he spoke about the anti-reservation protests held at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in August.

On Monday, Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler held that Bharti’s plea for anticipatory bail was not maintainable, reported Bar and Bench.

There should be no apprehension of arrest only because a case had been registered, the judge further said.

Bharti has been booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, the Information Technology Act and provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity between groups, and criminal intimidation.

The YouTuber has claimed that he had made the comments in response to abusive social media posts targeting his sister. He...

Read more