Former Delhi University professor Saibaba acquitted in connection with Maoists, was arrested in 2014

Nearly eight years after his arrest, the Bombay High Court on Friday acquitted former Delhi University (DU) professor G N Saibaba in a case related to his alleged Maoist links and ordered his immediate release from jail. The court said the order granting sanction to prosecute the accused in the case under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) was "wrong in law and illegal".

The Nagpur bench of Justice Rohit Dev and Justice Anil Pansare allowed Saibaba's plea challenging the trial court's 2017 order convicting him and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Saibaba takes the help of a wheelchair because of his physical disability. He has been kept in Nagpur Central Jail. He was arrested in February 2014. A sessions court in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district had in March 2017 convicted Saibaba, a journalist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student, including others, of alleged links with Maoists and indulging in activities of waging war against the country. He had convicted Saibaba and others under various provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The sanction for prosecution under the UPAP was granted in 2014 against the five accused arrested earlier in the case and the same was granted in 2015 against Saibaba. The bench observed that when the trial court took cognizance of the prosecution's charge sheet in 2014, sanction was not granted to prosecute Saibaba under UAPA. The High Court held that the proceedings of the trial court in the absence of valid sanction under the UAPA are "invalid" and hence the order of the trial court deserves to be set aside and set aside.