Bombay HC acquits former DU professor GN Saibaba in UAPA case

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has acquitted former Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba and five others in the case registered against them alleging links with Maoists under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

A division bench of Justice Vinay Joshi and Justice Valmiki SA Menezes acquitted all six convicts on the grounds that the sessions judge had framed charges against the appellants and examined the first witness in the absence of sanction. While reading out the order, Justice Joshi asserted that there was no evidence against the convicted to keep them in prison.

They had been convicted by the trial court under UAPA and were sentenced to life imprisonment. Saibaba, who was a former professor at Delhi University’s Ram Lal Anand College, was arrested in 2014 and the five others had been arrested a year before that.

During the trial at the sessions court in Maharashtra’s in Gadchiroli in 2017, the prosecution claimed that the appellants had connections with the CPI Maoist and its frontal organization, the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF). They alleged that Saibaba, who is a polio patient and developed serious complications in Nagpur prison, and the others assisted CPI (Maoist) cadre by providing information, material, facilitating the travel and relocation of members.

The prosecution claimed that they have seized electronic material and pamphlets and all of this material was “anti-national” and that Saibaba had handed over a 16GB memory card intended for Naxalites being sheltered in Chhattisgarh's Abuzmad forest.

The Sessions Court had convicted the 6 accused in the case and accused them of having links with “Maoists” and for waging war against the state in March 2017 under sections 13, 18, 20, 38 and 39 of the UAPA and 120-B of IPC.

One of the accused, Pandu Pora Narote, died in August 2022 of swine flu. Mahesh Tirki was sentenced to 10 years, while Saibaba, former Jawaharlal Nehru University student Hem Keshwdatta Mishra, Uttarakhand journalist Prashant Rahi and Gadchiroli tribal Vijay Nan Tirki were sentenced to life.

In October 2022, another bench of the Bombay HC comprising Justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare had set aside the conviction stating that the trial by the Sessions Court was void because there was no valid sanction under section 45(1) of the UAPA.

The court had underscored the importance of procedural compliance in cases involving terrorism and emphasised that departures from due process could foster an environment conducive to terrorism.

Then, at the behest of the Maharashtra government, in a special sitting on Saturday, the Supreme Court had stayed the High Court order the next day. Then, the Supreme Court ordered the Bombay High Court to re-evaluate the case afresh. The apex court directed the HC to re-consider all aspects of the case, including that of the sanction and it should proceed only on the merits of the case, with being influenced by the previous order.

The Supreme Court then explained that it had only specified the need for a review and hadn’t gone through the case.