Remarks not casteist, BNS to blame: Ajeet Bharti slams denial of pre-arrest bail

A day after a Delhi court rejected his anticipatory bail plea, reservation-reform activist Ajeet Bharti blamed the denial on the newly amended BNS provisions. He called the FIR filed by an Azad Samaj Party leader an intimidation tactic. Bharti was booked under the SC/ST Act over his remarks against Nagina MP Chandrashekhar Azad, who belongs to the SC community.Quota-reform activist Ajeet Bharti said that his remarks on ASP chief Chandrashekhar Azad werre not casteist. (Image: AjeetBharti/YouTube)Reservation-reform activist and YouTuber Ajeet Bharti has reacted for the first time after a Delhi court on Monday denied him anticipatory bail in a case registered under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (SC/ST Act). Bharti has argued that his comments didn't reflect any "caste-bias" and said the SC/ST Act was being used to turn a statement he made into a caste-related offence. He blamed the BNS, under whose provisions, Bharti said, his anticipatory bail was rejected.Bhari's reaction to the court's verdict came a day after a local court in Delhi rejected his plea seeking anticipatory bail in the case. Back in August, a day after reservation-reform activists and people from the "upper-castes" stormed Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, a comment was made by Bharti on his YouTube channel, which involved Nagina MP and Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) chief Chandrashekhar Azad. His comments triggered a complaint from Balakram Bauddh, Delhi State president of the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), the party led by Nagina MP Azad.The detailed order, released on Wednesday of Monday's (September 7) court proceedings, said that Bharti's remarks prima facie invoked caste hierarchy and caste-based notions of purity, particularly in the context of marriage between members of different castes. After the plea rejection, Bharti on Tuesday during a YouTube live stream, spoke about the misuse of the SC/ST act, the UGC row and other contemporary issues. The 38-year-old reservation-reform activist claimed that the SC/ST act is used to "scare and threaten people"."When someone is working for the reforms in the quota system, showing it and telling people about it, they try to scare and threaten. They look for loopholes, like, 'Oh, Ajeet Bharti abused someone. How can the SC/ST Act be imposed on this?'" Bharti said during the live interaction on his YouTube channel on Tuesday evening. Bharti also took to X to respond to the court's reasoning concerning the rejection of his plea. Sharing the court order on Wednesday, Bharti argued, had the SC/ST Act not been invoked, he would have received bail because, according to him, there was no serious criminal matter in the allegations."This is the court's order that if the Modi Act [reference to Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita] had not been imposed on this, bail would have been granted immediately because there is no serious matter in it at all," Bharti said in his post.He further challenged the interpretation of the phrase "he will have to become worthy", which the prosecution and court viewed in the context of caste."But since the Modi Act has been imposed, now they have taken offense to my statement 'he will have to become worthy' — claiming that I said it out of casteist bias, that Ravan [Chandrashekhar Azad] would have to become worthy for any girl," Bharti wrote on X."In other words, worthiness is no longer about economics, not about beauty or virtues, not about education, but something else entirely," he added.WHY AJEET BHARTI WAS BOOKED UNDER THE PROVISION OF SC/ST ACTThe case originates from remarks Bharti made during one of his YouTube livestreams titled, SB79: Reservation Hatao Andolan Nautanki & More | Saptahik Bakaiti. The comments triggered a complaint from Bauddh, Delhi president of the Chandrashekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram).Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered at Delhi's North Avenue police station on August 23. He was booked under provisions of the SC/ST Act, Section 67 of the Information Technology Act and Sections 196(1)(c) and 351(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).The complaint centred on a portion of Bharti's livestream in which he was responding to a viewer's suggestion that he should get his sister married to Chandrashekhar Azad, a Dalit leader, so that caste-based reservation would come to an end.According to the FIR, Bharti's response allegedly contained caste-based and abusive remarks against Azad, besides objectionable references to BR Ambedkar and women. The complaint also alleged that the livestream contained threatening and sexually degrading remarks.The FIR further alleged that Bharti referred to the "Dom" and "Chamar" communities while responding to the viewer. He allegedly went on to argue that merely being a "Chamar" and an MP was not enough for marriage and that Azad would first have to become "worthy" of marrying a "Savarna (upper-caste)" woman.It was this portion of the remarks that became central to the legal dispute over whether the SC/ST Act provisions were attracted.While rejecting Bharti's anticipatory bail plea on September 7, Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler of the Patiala House Courts examined the remarks in the context of caste and marriage.The court observed that Bharti's assertion that Azad should "make himself worthy" of marrying an "upper-caste" woman was a specific reference to caste and was humiliating in nature.The court's reasoning was that the remark appeared to suggest that a person belonging to an SC community had to possess something "extra" or be "worthy" to marry an "upper-caste" woman, thereby invoking caste-based notions of hierarchy. The court therefore found a prima facie case under the relevant provisions of the SC/ST Act and declined to grant Ajeet Bharti the protection of anticipatory bail.Bharti's latest statements indicate that he intends to frame the case as an example of what he called as the misuse of the SC/ST Act. His reference to the BNS as the prime minister's act is part of his broader criticism of what he alleges is the use of legal provisions to intimidate or silence those challenging the existing caste-based affirmative action.- EndsPublished By: Avinash KateelPublished On: Sep 9, 2026 16:22 IST