Mumbai: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court today, March 5, acquitted former professor of Delhi University G.N. Saibaba and five others in a case accusing them of Maoist links.
A division bench of Justice Vinay G. Joshi and Justice Valimiki S. Menezes today acquitted Saibaba, along with journalist Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tikri, Hem Keshwdatta Mishra and Vijay Nan Tikri of all charges.
Pandu Narote, the sixth person implicated in the case, and was convicted earlier in 2017, died in August 2022, due to alleged delay in treatment while in jail.
A copy of the high court’s detailed order copy is awaited and the story will be updated as when the order copy is available. The court had concluded the hearing and reserved its verdict in September last year.
Justice Joshi, while reading out from the order, said that the prosecution’s case stands “vitiated”. The court also pointed to procedural lapses in securing appropriate sanctions and during seizures of the alleged electronic evidence from the accused persons. Justice Menezes, who was in Goa at the time of delivering the verdict, joined the hearing through video conferencing.
Around 3 pm, the state, represented by lawyer D.V. Chauhan, moved an application before the high court seeking a stay on the order. In the application, the state informed the court that it has already filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court. Interestingly, the state filed the SLP even before the detailed order copy of the HC was made available.
The court, however, rejected the application. Advocate General for Maharashtra Dr. Birendra Saraf represented the state. Now unless the Supreme Court intervenes, the state will have to execute the HC’s order and should release Saibaba and others from the Nagpur Centra jail where they are presently lodged.
In the application seeking a stay, the state claims, “The nature of the matter is urgent since in case the judgment and order in question is implemented, serious prejudice will be caused to the state. The judgment in question thus if implemented, it will have serious repercussions and ramifications on the proceedings under the UAPA law”. The state has sought six weeks stay on the judgment.
In an additional letter to the Registrar seeking the reconstitution of the bench (of Justice Joshi and Menezes), Chouhan says, “If the effect and operation of the judgment is not stayed, the appellant would attempt to execute the direction issued in the judgment and may cause its release from the prison.”
This is the second time in two years that the Nagpur bench has acquitted Saibaba and others. On October 14, 2022, the same court, comprising of Justice Rohit B. Deo and Anil Pansare had overturned the Gadchiroli session court’s judgement. Barring Vijay Tikri, who was convicted to ten years rigorous punishment, the others were awarded life sentences.
In 2022, discharging all five accused, Justice Deo had observed that the due process of law cannot be sacrificed at the altar of “perceived peril to national security”. The bench directed the convicts to be released forthwith from jail unless they are accused in any other case.
The defence lawyers appearing for Saibaba and others had challenged the validity of the sanction order issued to prosecute under the stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). They had relied on Section 41 (A) of the UAPA which clearly states that, “No court shall take cognizance of any offence without the previous sanction of the Central Government or any officer authorised by the Central Government on this behalf”.
The HC in 2022 had called the absence of a valid sanction order as “bad in law and invalid”.
Even with the HC’s order, the Nagpur central jail authorities had refused to release them immediately and meanwhile, the state government had rushed to the Supreme Court seeking stay on the order.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta had argued before the apex court that the discharge order was passed on the ground that the requisite sanction was not sought by the prosecution and not on merit.
Advocate Nihalsing Rathod, one of the lawyers on the case called today’s judgment as a “bold and brave” one.
He further added that “the verdict only further exposes the prosecution”. Rathod said that the verdict is a tribute to 33-year-old Pandu Narote, “an innocent man who died in jail awaiting this verdict”.
Vasantha, Saibaba’s wife, issued a statement saying: “I am extremely happy to hear the news of full acquittal for Dr. G N Saibaba and others. After 10 long years of struggle, justice is finally delivered. I only hope there are no future obstacles to his very well-deserved freedom.” She further thanked the lawyers “who have been working on this tirelessly for justice”.
The defence team include senior advocates Subodh Dharmadjikari and Trideep Pais along with lawyers Nihalsing Rathod, Pradip Mandhyan, Barun Kumar, Harshal Lingayat, Rahul waghmare, Ashwini S Uikey, Kajal Bhagat, Nitesh Gwalwansh, Shubhangi Shiwrekar, Akash Sorde, Pankaj khapekar, Ashwath Sitaraman, Sumit Gadling, Burhan Sheikh, Akshay Dhongde, Swapnil Bondade and Gaurav Dhaye.
Prashant Rahi’s daughter Shikha, a young film professional who has spent the last decade fighting for justice, was overcome by emotions. “I am speechless right now. I just want to see him walk out of the jail now,” she told The Wire.
She recalled her long struggle for her father’s freedom. “I don’t remember a time when I have not worried for his health and his release (from jail). Even though it was my father who was facing incarceration, it felt like my mind too was imprisoned,” she said.
Shikha shared that this is the second case (the earlier one was filed in Uttarakhand) in which Rahi has been acquitted. “Every time the court delivered an order in our favour, the state tried newer means to keep them in jail. The state’s repression can be seen in its worst form in this case,” she added.
Shikha also brought their lawyers under the spotlight.
“For me the fight was personal, after all it is my father who’s in jail. But for these lawyers who spent the past decade in ensuring we get justice, it was purely a fight for right to liberty. They didn’t make any money but came under the state’s scanner themselves. One lawyer (advocate Surendra Gadling, who was arrested in the Elgar Parishad case in 2018) got arrested for defending them, others have been surveilled upon by the state,” she said.
Also read: Strange Case of G.N. Saibaba and the Supreme Court, Another New Abnormal
What was the case?
In March 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district convicted Saibaba and others, including a journalist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student, for alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country.
The case was registered in the Aheri police station in Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra.
The prosecution had claimed that Saibaba was the secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an alleged frontal organisation of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). RDF is banned in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
Saibaba was named as the prime accused in the case. Of the electronic devices seized from his residence in 2013, the state had claimed that as many as 247 pages were found to be “incriminating”. The police had further claimed that a memory card seized from Hem Mishra contained certain documents that “established” Saibaba’s deep involvement in the activities of the banned terrorist organisation.
The lower court’s conviction was based on the statements of 22 witnesses. Of them, only one was an independent witness; the rest were all police witnesses.
The court had held Saibaba and the others guilty under various provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Over the past decade, Saibaba, who is 90% disabled and wheelchair-bound, had to endure serious health complications.
His wife, Vasantha, had made multiple appeals to the state and the higher courts seeking his release owing to his deteriorating health condition. In one of her desperate appeals, Vasantha had said that if Saibaba was not released immediately from jail, he might die.
The possibility of death in Indian prisons is not unreal, given that Narote, one of his co-accused died of swine flu in 2022, allegedly because of lack of medical care. Also, according to the National Crime Reports Bureau (NCRB), close to 2000 people die in jail every year due to lack of adequate medical treatment.
