Uttar Pradesh: FIR Filed Against 22-Year-Old for Recording Poor Conditions at Government School - The Wire

Uttar Pradesh: FIR Filed Against 22-Year-Old for Recording Poor Conditions at Government School

New Delhi: Last month, when 22-year-old third-year B.Sc student and social media content creator Gaurav Bharti participated in the Cockroach Janata Party’s ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign to fix rural government schools, he thought it best to start from his own village in the Farukkhabad district of Uttar Pradesh.

Bharti visited the government primary school in Karanpur Majra Bansmei on August 16 – the school was closed since it was a Sunday – and shot a video documenting deficiencies in the infrastructure. In the video, which remains uploaded on his social media pages, Bharti takes viewers through the school compound, showing water accumulation near the classrooms, a dilapidated roof on a disused room, dense overgrowth around a broken boundary wall, no running water in the storage tank, and a complete lack of taps at the washing area. “The latrine bathroom and the water tank kept there are only showpieces. Water never reached them,” he says in the video, in which he also stresses that he would write an application to the gram pradhan requesting him to fix these shortcomings.

Bharti currently has approximately 2.5 lakh followers on Instagram and roughly 1.5 lakh followers on Facebook.

The following day, August 17, Bharti visited the school once again and spoke to the two teachers who were present on the premises. But for all his efforts, Bharti soon found himself in legal trouble. On August 19, police in Farukkhabad registered a criminal case against him based on the complaint of an assistant teacher, who accused him of presenting the overall condition of the school in a distorted and misleading manner. Garima, the teacher, alleged that Bharti showed a dilapidated building located on the school grounds – which already had a cross mark painted on it to signify it was unsafe – as being actively used as a classroom for students. She further said that Bharti stated in the video that the school gets flooded with water, leaving no space left for the children to sit, which consequently leads to them being dismissed early. “The video filmed by Gaurav Bharti inappropriately has been circulated across social media, tarnishing the image of our school,” said Garima in her official police complaint.

She further alleged that on August 17, at around 12:30 pm, Bharti came to the school accompanied by an unknown person who was intoxicated and spoke inappropriately to the two female teachers on duty. “Distressed, we called the emergency police helpline number 112 and summoned the police. Every day, some unruly element comes to the school and harasses us by making videos,” Garima stated.

An FIR was subsequently lodged against Bharti and his companion under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of peace) and 353 (circulating false information, rumors, or reports that cause public mischief, along with section 66 of the Information Technology Act.

'They have falsely implicated me'

Speaking to The Wire, Bharti strongly rejected all the allegations levelled against him, stating that his sole intention was to document the glaring deficiencies in the school’s sanitation, infrastructure, and drinking water facilities so that the students could be served better.

“They don’t want us to show their failures and shortcomings,” said Bharti, who serves as a coverage coordinator for the CJP in UP alongside being a student at Kannauj Degree College. “I only wanted to highlight the poor condition and raise a voice for the children who cannot speak up for themselves. Most of these students who study in government schools in rural areas come from poor families or Dalit backgrounds and cannot afford private schools,” he said.

Bharti expressed deep pain that for merely capturing and sharing a video of a local school, he now faces a criminal case at such a young age. “I feel so bad. At 22, I already have a criminal case registered against me. They have falsely implicated me. They want to make me a criminal,” he lamented.

There are many others like him. Multiple individuals are currently facing criminal charges across Uttar Pradesh following allegations of spreading misinformation by filming videos that highlight infrastructure deficiencies in government-run schools.

As reported by The Wire previously, similar legal cases have emerged in Deoria, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hardoi, Hathras, Meerut, Lucknow, Amethi, and Siddharthnagar. This flurry of First Information Reports followed explicit instructions issued on August 22 by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who directed senior officials to take strict criminal action against individuals attempting to disturb the peace in the state by circulating false and “misleading” videos concerning government schools. Following these orders, several districts across the state have banned the entry of outsiders, including YouTubers and independent social media users, from entering government school premises without formal prior authorisation.

FIR fails to disclose essential information

Bharti has since moved the Allahabad high court seeking the quashing of the FIR and protection from coercive action by the police. In his petition, Bharti contends that the FIR fails to disclose the essential legal ingredients required for Sections 352 and 353 of the BNS. He argues that there is no allegation of any intent to cause fear, alarm, incite an offence, or disturb public tranquillity, while the alleged “anargal baatein” (irrelevant or absurd remarks) mentioned in the FIR are neither reproduced in text nor specifically attributed to him. The plea further challenges the application of Section 66 of the IT Act, contending that the FIR contains no allegation of unauthorised system access, copying, alteration, deletion, or damage to computer data or electronic resources, and that merely recording and uploading a video of a physical government school building does not constitute an offence under the Act.

Bharti explained that his own life experience as a student in a government school, coupled with his unfulfilled childhood aspiration of studying in a private school, inspired him to visit his local school, where his nephews currently study. “I thought that if I cannot improve the school in my own village, how can I campaign in other villages? And I did not go there just once. I visited more than twice just to be completely sure of what I observed,” he said.

Bharti also clarified that he did not raise any questions regarding the quality of teaching or the conduct of the teachers, but focused strictly on the physical infrastructure. “In my video too, I explicitly mentioned that keeping the school clean and repairing the boundary wall was the primary duty of the village pradhan. I did not even talk about the quality of teaching,” he said.

With Bharti’s plea scheduled to come up for hearing next week, he remains deeply worried about his future and academic career. Recently, the Allahabad high court stayed an FIR registered against social-media journalist Amit Yadav, who operates the digital news channel ‘Jameeni Khabar’. Yadav had been booked after filming and uploading video content showing unmaintained toilet facilities and a lack of clean drinking water at a government school in Lucknow.

While providing him relief, the court noted that it was prima facie apparent that the FIR lodged against Yadav was a “retaliatory action to the shortcomings being exposed” by him. It tantamounts to “killing the messenger,” which clearly is not countenanced in the eyes of the law, observed the high court. Yadav had been charged under Sections 223, 353, and 356 of the BNS – provisions relating to disobedience to orders promulgated by a public servant, statements conducing to public mischief, and criminal defamation. Yadav’s digital news channel boasts a significant social media reach, with 670,000 followers on Facebook, 21,800 followers on Instagram, and 164,000 subscribers on YouTube.

UP's ambitious school scheme

Even as the state administration continues to lodge criminal cases against individuals shooting videos inside government schools across UP, the Adityanath government recently approved an ambitious proposal to upgrade primary schools under the state’s Basic Education Council into ‘Smart Schools’. Under this project, around 14,429 schools are proposed to be covered with an approved financial allocation of Rs 300 crore, translating to approximately Rs 2.08 lakh spent per school.

On September 18, former chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati described the scheme as a positive step, but stressed that before providing children with so-called 'smart education,' their basic foundational needs – such as a sturdy roof over their heads, proper benches, chairs, books, clean toilets, playgrounds, and basic hygiene – must be adequately addressed. “And whether all this can genuinely be achieved for about two lakh rupees per school is something the government should certainly consider sympathetically,” she said in a post shared on X.

This article went live on September twentieth, two thousand twenty six, at fifty-seven minutes past three in the afternoon.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.

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