Nagpur/New Delhi: The Supreme Court registry on Wednesday refused to hear Maharashtra Government’s Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging the acquittal of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba, on priority, according to lawyers who are representing the State.
The State Government on Wednesday approached the apex court challenging the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court’s verdict absolving Saibaba and five of his accomplices, including one dead, of charges of aiding Naxal activity and waging a war against the nation.
Gold Rate
Tuesday 21 Jan. 2025
Government’s special counsel Prashant Sathianathan said that they had approached the Supreme Court’s registry for urgent hearing in the case on Tuesday itself, but it could not come up for hearing as the copy of the HC judgment was not uploaded. Sathianathan said he was not aware why it had not come up for hearing on Wednesday.
According to the lawyers who are associated with the case, the Government’s case would take time to come up for hearing soon since it was listed as a regular case.
The Bombay High Court’s Nagpur Bench has acquitted Saibaba and five others, overturning the 2017 verdict of a Gadchiroli Sessions Court which had sentenced them to life terms. A division bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and Valmiki SA Menezes ordered the acquitted accused to be released from jail after depositing Rs 50,000 each as bail bond. The bench said that it was acquitting all the accused in the case as the prosecution failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt against them. The Court declared the sanction against the accused under the UAPA as “null and void.”
Justices Joshi and Menezes re-heard Saibaba’s case after a previous division bench of the Bombay High Court had also acquitted the disabled professor in October 2022. The re-hearing took place after the Supreme Court set aside the October 2022 acquittal order and remanded the matter for a fresh hearing back to the Bombay High Court.
The prosecution alleged that Saibaba and others were working for the banned CPI-Maoist and its frontal organisations like the Revolutionary Democratic Front. The Maharashtra Police had seized evidence like Maoist literature, pamphlets, electronic materials, and other things deemed to be “anti-national” from them.
Meanwhile, former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with alleged Naxal links, was released from Nagpur Central Jail early on Thursday. Earlier, the release of Saibaba was delayed as Nagpur Jail authorities had not received release order from Gadchiroli Sessions Court.
