Highlights
- Saibaba, a wheelchair-bound academic was arrested in 2015 under the UAPA, and in March 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district convicted him
- The prosecution had alleged that the convicts were active members of the banned terrorist outfit CPI (Maoist) and its frontal organisation Revolutionary Democratic Front.
- Saibaba who was born in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh has been wheelchair-bound since the age of five due to polio and sufferes from 90% disability.
The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court on Friday acquitted former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba in an alleged Maoist links case and ordered his release from jail.
Saibaba, a wheelchair-bound academic was arrested in 2015 under the UAPA and in March 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district had convicted him for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country.
He along with four others was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Saibaba was accused of being a CPIM-L member
The prosecution had alleged that the convicts were active members of the banned terrorist outfit CPI (Maoist) and its frontal organisation Revolutionary Democratic Front.
On Thursday, the Bombay HC bench of Justice Rohit Deo and Justice Anil Pansare allowed the appeal filed by the 52-year-old.
Saibaba’s conviction null and void: HC
The court in its judgment noted that the trial court proceedings were “null and void” in the absence of valid sanction under the UAPA and hence the judgment was liable to be set aside and quashed.
The court held that terrorism poses an ominous threat to national security and vile and abhorrent acts of terror do evoke collective societal anger and anguish.
“While the war against terror must be waged by the State with unwavering resolve, and every legitimate weapon in the armory must be deployed in the fight against terror, a civil democratic society can ill afford to sacrifice the procedural safeguards legislatively provided, and which is an integral facet of the due process of law, at the altar of perceived peril to national security,” the judgment said.
One of the co-accused died in jail
The court on Thursday said that Saibaba and others who have been acquitted should immediately be released from the Nagpur Jail if there are no other cases against them.
While four of them, including Saibaba, are set to walk free, Pandu Pora Narote, a farmer who was also sentenced with them did not live to enjoy the freedom.
Narote died in August 2022 in jail after contracting Swine Flu.
Wheelchair-bound since the age of 5
Saibaba who was born in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh has been wheelchair-bound since the age of five due to polio and suffers from 90% disability.
Saibaba who taught English at Ram Lal Anand College of Delhi University was dismissed from his post as Assistant professor in February 2021, following his arrest and conviction.
He did nothing wrong: Wife
Reacting to his acquittal, Saibaba’s wife AS Vasantha Kumari on Friday thanked his supporters and the judiciary.
“We had faith that he would be acquitted because he did not do anything wrong. There was no crime and no evidence. I am thankful for the judiciary and all those who supported us,” Vasantha Kumari told PTI.
Activists welcome the acquittal
Welcoming his release, academician Ashok Swain tweeted, “He was jailed almost as long Modi has been prime minister.”
Supreme Court lawyer and activist Indira Jaising took to Twitter to congratulate the legal team of Saibaba and expressed her “heartfelt tribute to Pandu Narote, his co-accused who died in prison”.
Disability rights activists also lauded the Bombay High Court’s decision to acquit Saibaba in the case.
“We were all saddened and alarmed by the treatment he was meted by being kept in a solitary cell. Being a person with a disability, he has the right to certain accommodations even in prison,” he said.
