The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition filed by the Maharashtra government seeking a stay on the Bombay High Court’s March 5 verdict acquitting former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba and five others who were accused of having links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), PTI reported.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta, while hearing the Maharashtra government’s special leave petition, said that the Bombay High Court’s order was “prima facie well reasoned”.
Saibaba was first arrested in the case in May 2014 but was granted bail twice. He had been lodged in the Nagpur Central Jail after a sessions court convicted him on March 7, 2017.
On March 5, the Bombay High Court set aside the judgement, ruling that it is not inherently illegal to access content about Communist or Naxalite philosophy, including videos of a violent nature, unless there is evidence linking the accused person to specific acts of violence or terrorism.
Hours after the acquittal, the Maharashtra government filed an application in the Bombay High Court seeking a six-week stay on the order. The High Court, however, dismissed the application and Saibaba was released from the Nagpur Central Jail on March 7.
“No evidence has been led by the prosecution by any witness to any incident, attack, act of violence or even evidence collected from some earlier scene of offence where a terrorist act has taken place, in order to connect the accused to such act, either by participating in its preparation or its direction or in any manner providing support to its commission,” the Bombay High Court had said on March 5.
Apart from Saibaba, the High Court also acquitted Mahesh Tirki, Pandu Pora Narote, Hem Keshwdatta Mishra, Prashant Rahi and Vijay Nan Tirki. Narote died in prison of swine flu on August 26, 2022.
On Monday, the Supreme Court said that Saibaba and the others had been acquitted twice by two different Bombay High Court benches, Live Law reported.
The top court told Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing the Maharashtra government, that the presumption of innocence operates with more force after an acquittal. “Once there is an order of acquittal, that presumption gets fortified,” the bench said.
“Since on an earlier occasion, this court had interfered, we’ll have to honour that,” the top court said. “Otherwise, this is a very well-reasoned judgment by the High Court,” it added.
The bench also said that the “parameters of interference” with respect to acquittal orders were limited.
“It’s a hard-earned acquittal,” the Supreme Court remarked. “How many years has the man spent in jail?” The top court, however, allowed the Maharashtra government to proceed with filing an appeal against the March 5 order.
Earlier acquittal
Earlier too, the Bombay High Court had acquitted Saibaba on October 14, 2022, holding that a sessions court in Gadchiroli charged Saibaba under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act without sanction from the Centre.
Wheelchair-bound Saibaba, who is 90% disabled, was convicted by the trial court in 2017 for allegedly having links to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and a frontal organisation, the Revolutionary Democratic Front. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment.
In its 2022 judgement, the Bombay High Court had said that the sanction order issued to prosecute the accused persons in the case under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was “bad in law and invalid”.
The court had said that while the state must fight terror with “unwavering resolve”, a civil democratic society could not sacrifice due process of law on account of a perceived danger to national security.
This order was suspended by the Supreme Court a day later on a petition filed by the Maharashtra government. On April 19, 2023, a division bench of the top court comprising Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar set aside the acquittal order and sent the case back to the High Court for fresh consideration.
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