Bombay High Court acquits G.N. Saibaba and others in UAPA Case

NAGPUR: Ruling in favour of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has acquitted him and five other accused in an alleged Maoist links case.

A bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and Valmiki SA Menezes set aside a sessions courts judgement, convicting Saibaba and others in 2017.

The Court said that the accused could be released from prison after depositing 50,000 each as bail bonds till the Supreme Court delivers a ruling in the appeal moved by the State government. 

Reportedly, the Bench held that the prosecution failed to prove the case against the accused and held the sanction under UAPA was null and void and entire prosecution was vitiated on account of invalid sanction to prosecute accused persons. 

The trial was held despite violation of the mandatory provisions of law and this amounted to failure of justice, the court said while pointing out that the prosecution failed to establish legal seizure of material and could not prove any incriminating material against the accused. Terming the Trial Courts judgement as unsustainable, the High Court allowed the appeals. 

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The Court had concluded the hearing and reserved its judgment in September last year, following Supreme Courts directions. After Saibaba and others were discharged in the case by the High Court, in a Saturday hearing, the Supreme Court set aside the order and remanded the matter back to the High Court. This was in April, 2023. 

Saibaba is wheelchair-bound and 99 percent disabled. He is presently lodged in Nagpur Central Jail.

A sessions court in Gadchiroli had, in March 2017, convicted Saibaba and the others for alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country.

The sessions court had held that Saibaba and two other accused were in possession of naxal literature with the intent and purpose of circulation amongst underground naxlites at Gadchiroli and residents of the district with the aim to incite the people to resort to violence.

Further, the sessions court had negated the submission that the absence of sanction to prosecute Saibaba was fatal to the case of the prosecution.

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