"Well-Reasoned": Top Court Declines Stay Ex-Professor Saibaba's Release

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the "hard-earned" acquittal of ex-Delhi University professor GN Saibaba and five others, all of whom had been accused of Maoist links and charged under stringent anti-terror law UAPA. The court also rejected an oral request by the Maharashtra government for an early listing of its plea against the verdict of the Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench.

"There cannot be urgency in order of reversal of conviction. Had it been the other way around, we would have considered," a bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta said, adding also that prima facie they found the Nagpur bench's judgement to be "very well-reasoned". 

The Supreme Court further pointed out that all six had been acquitted twice - by two different benches.

In 2022 the High Court had ruled that valid sanction had not been obtained to prosecute Prof Saibaba under anti-terror law UAPA. And last week the Nagpur bench found no evidence to link the professor, or the others, to any terrorist act, and also cast doubts over "seizures" claimed by the state police.

"Prosecution has failed to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, the case against the accused persons," a division bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and Valmiki SA Menezes had said last week.

READ | Ex Professor GN Saibaba, Jailed For Alleged Maoist Links, Acquitted

The court, further, held as "null and void" the sanction procured by the prosecution to charge the accused under UAPA, or the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and said, "Prosecution has failed to establish legal seizure or incriminating material against the accused."

Referring to these, the Supreme Court set aside Prof Saibaba's sentence; this comes nearly 10 years after he was arrested and lodged in Nagpur Central Jail in 2014.

Justice Mehta called the professor's acquittal "hard-earned".

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The professor had been convicted of alleged Maoist links, and indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country, by a sessions court in Gadchiroli district.

Speaking after his release, he said he wanted to be reinstated and compensated for lost years of service; he had been fired Delhi's Ram Lal Anand College in 2021.

READ | "Can't Live Without Teaching, Want My Job Back": Ex-Prof GN Saibaba

"I am still not able to register that I am free. I feel I am still lodged in the notorious jail cell. It was like an 'agni pariksha' for me. I had to go through a test by fire twice," he said.

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