YouTuber Ajeet Bharti has moved the Delhi High Court for anticipatory bail in an SC/ST Act case after a trial court refused relief, holding his remarks prima facie invoked caste hierarchy.
New Delhi: YouTuber and commentator Ajeet Bharti has approached the Delhi High Court seeking anticipatory bail in the case registered against him under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, after a trial court declined him relief holding, prima facie, that the language he used invoked caste hierarchy and notions of caste “purity” [Ajeet Bharti v. State (NCT of Delhi)].
Bharti’s plea challenges the order of September 7, by which Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler of the Patiala House Court rejected his anticipatory bail application. The matter is likely to be listed before the High Court next week. The allegations remain untested; the trial court’s findings are prima facie observations at the bail stage, and no charge has been established following trial.
The trial court’s refusal
The immediate trigger for the High Court plea was the detailed order of the Sessions Court declining protection from arrest. In rejecting the application on September 7, ASJ Laler held that the language attributed to Bharti invoked caste hierarchy, caste-based notions of purity, and the assumed superiority of “upper” over “lower” castes in matters of marriage and lineage.
The court’s reasoning focused on a specific remark. It observed that Bharti’s assertion that Chandrashekhar Azad the Azad Samaj Party chief also known as “Ravan” should make himself “worthy” of marrying an upper-caste girl was a direct and humiliating reference to caste:
“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.”
On that basis, the trial court found that the ingredients of an offence under the SC/ST Act were prima facie attracted a finding of particular significance because, under Section 18 of the Act, the remedy of anticipatory bail is ordinarily unavailable where a prima facie case under the Act is made out. It was that conclusion, foreclosing pre-arrest protection, that Bharti now challenges before the High Court.
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The FIR and the complaint
The FIR was registered against Bharti at Delhi’s North Avenue Police Station on August 23, under the SC/ST Act along with Section 67 of the Information Technology Act and Sections 196(1)(c) and 351(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. It followed a complaint by Balakram Bauddh, the Delhi State President of the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), over a video published on Bharti’s social-media handle.
According to the complaint, Bharti used caste-based and abusive language, made objectionable remarks concerning Chandrashekhar Azad and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, used sexually degrading language about women, and issued threats. These are the allegations in the complaint, which the trial court has assessed only prima facie for the purpose of the bail plea. Bharti, for his part, has publicly defended himself, contending that his remarks were provoked by a degrading comment made about a member of his family an account that likewise remains untested.
The legal question before the High Court
The appeal squarely engages the special bar in the SC/ST Act on anticipatory bail. Section 18 of the Act excludes the application of Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (now Section 482 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita), which provides for anticipatory bail, in relation to offences under the Act. The Supreme Court has, however, clarified in cases such as Prathvi Raj Chauhan v. Union of India that this bar is not absolute where the complaint, taken at face value, does not disclose the ingredients of an offence under the Act, a court retains the power to grant anticipatory bail, because the statutory bar is triggered only where a prima facie case under the Act genuinely exists.
The High Court will therefore have to consider whether the trial court was right to conclude that the ingredients of an SC/ST Act offence were prima facie attracted on the material before it the very finding that shut the door to pre-arrest protection. Bharti’s case, as advanced from the outset, has been that no offence under the Act is made out on the facts; the trial court took the contrary view; and it is that difference which the High Court is now called upon to resolve. Its determination will decide not merely whether Bharti receives protection from arrest, but the threshold question of whether the case falls within or outside the Section 18 bar.
Background
The proceedings sit at the intersection of two frequently-litigated areas the regulation of online speech and the stringent procedural regime of the SC/ST Act, enacted to protect members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from caste-based atrocities. The parallel invocation of Section 67 of the IT Act (which concerns publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) alongside the BNS provisions reflects the increasingly common pattern of speech-related FIRs bundling atrocity, obscenity and public-order offences arising from a single piece of online content.
Bharti had first sought anticipatory bail before the Sessions Court, which, at an earlier stage, had directed that any notice of appearance issued to him by the police be placed before it for examination before the plea was decided before ultimately rejecting the application on the merits on September 7. The escalation to the High Court is the next stage in that sequence. Nothing has been finally decided against Bharti; the case remains at the pre-arrest stage, the allegations are untested, and the High Court’s consideration of the anticipatory bail plea is expected next week.
Case Title: Ajeet Bharti v. State (NCT of Delhi) [anticipatory bail plea before the Delhi High Court]
Trial Court Order dated: September 7, 2026 (ASJ Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler, Patiala House Court)