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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Maharashtra government’s plea for staying the Bombay high court verdict that cleared former Delhi University (DU) professor GN Saibaba and five others of charges of “waging war against India” and having Maoist ties, saying the acquittal order is “well-reasoned” and that the “presumption of innocence gets fortified” after an exoneration.
“It’s a hard-earned acquittal…after how many years he [Saibaba] could earn it? There are two orders of acquittals in this case. Two different benches of the high court have acquitted him. Prima facie, we find that the judgment is very well-reasoned,” a bench of justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta said.
This was the second time in two years that the judiciary dropped accusations in the widely watched case. The charges were quashed by the high court for the first time in October 2022. But the government challenged the order in the Supreme Court, which held a special Saturday hearing and set aside the high court’s order while directing for a fresh adjudication. On March 5, the high court exonerated Saibaba and five others again, holding it to be a case of no evidence.
Representing the state government, additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju on Monday pointed out that the state was in appeal against the reversal of a conviction order passed by the trial court against Saibaba and others.
But the bench responded: “We have gone through the high court judgment and it’s a well-reasoned judgment…The law is that there is always a presumption of innocence. And once there is an order of acquittal, that presumption gets fortified.”
It also noted that the state had moved an application demanding the acquittal order be stayed even though the ASG did not press the plea. “It is unheard that acquittal is stayed. Let’s not leave any loose ends. We don’t want this application to be revived again. We are rejecting your application,” the bench said.
The bench issued notices to Saibaba and others in the state’s appeal, observing that it ought to “honour” a previous order of the Supreme Court when it entertained the state’s appeal and issued certain directions. At the same time, the bench held that this matter must wait until after the older criminal appeals had been taken up and that there was no pressing need to hear it.
“There cannot be any urgency in reversing an order of acquittal…In the ordinary course, we would not have entertained this appeal. But we are admitting it since on an earlier occasion, we had interfered, and we have to honour that,” said the bench, granting leave in the case as it turned down Raju’s request for expediting the appeal.
On March 7, 2017, a Gadchiroli sessions court convicted Saibaba, 57, and four other people to life in jail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA. Vijay Tirki, the sixth man, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The five convicted along with Saibaba were Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Hem Mishra, former journalist Prashant Rahi, and three activists of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, Mahesh Tirki, Pandu Pora Narote and Vijay Nan Tirki.
While Narote died in jail in 2022, awaiting the disposal of his appeal in the Bombay high court, Tirki was granted bail around two years ago. The remaining four, Saibaba included, were held in Nagpur Central Jail.
Saibaba, who has been confined to a wheelchair since contracting polio as a child, was arrested in May 2014 from his home in Delhi. Following his incarceration, he lost his job as an English professor at Delhi University. It has been one of the most well-known terror cases in India, with activists accusing the government of violating rights and the government contending that the seriousness of the accusations called for the strictest punishment possible.
Setting aside the trial court judgment on March 5, a division bench of the high court, comprising justices Vinay Joshi and Valmiki SA Menezes, held that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and that neither any legal seizure nor any other incriminating material could be linked with the accused.
“The trial court judgment is not sustainable in the hands of law. We, therefore, allow the appeals and set aside the impugned judgment. All the accused stand acquitted,” the high court judgment said. On that day, the state also asked the court to put its acquittal order in abeyance for the time being. The high court refused, noting that it might affect the personal liberty of the accused. Later in the day, the state moved the Supreme Court, challenging the verdict.
The Maharashtra government cited the recovery of materials contained in electronic form in Saibaba’s computer to link him with the banned organisation CPI(Maoists). It said the materials demonstrated that he knew about the activities of the organisation. These materials included pamphlets of CPI (Maoists), his interview as the vice-president of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an alleged frontal organisation of the CPI (Maoist), etc.
Basing its judgment on intellectual freedom as the cornerstone of a democratic society, the high court was emphatic that “the contents of these documents read and understood by any person, by themselves would not constitute an offence” under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) or the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
“The content of these documents if taken cumulatively, would perhaps demonstrate that the accused were sympathisers of a Maoist philosophy or sympathised with the cause of certain tribal groups or certain people who were perceived to be marginalised or disenfranchised…and mere possession of such literature, having a particular political and social philosophy by itself is not contemplated as an offence under the UAPA,” held the division bench.
The high court asserted that merely because a citizen downloads certain materials or even sympathises with a particular philosophy, would itself not be an offence unless there is specific evidence led by the prosecution to connect an active role shown by the accused with particular incidents of violence and terrorism. And in this case, the high court said, the prosecution could adduce no evidence to connect Saibaba to any incident, terror attack, or act of violence, either by participating in its preparation or any manner providing support to its commission.
The high court exonerated Saibaba and five other individuals for the first time in October 2022 because the state failed to meet two essential procedural safeguards—the sanction to prosecute and an independent evaluation of the sanction before the invocation of severe terror accusations. Asked by the Supreme Court in April 2023 to decide the case afresh, the high court reached the same conclusion on March 5.
The high court ruled that the sanction to prosecute the six, including Saibaba, was invalid because the reviewing body had not only demonstrated a lack of application of mind but also because no independent authority had provided any material to support its conclusion. “The laconic half-page communication cannot be called a report since there is no material found therein to infer that the authority has reviewed the evidence gathered and formed a particular opinion on that basis,” said the court. It added the sanction accorded in the absence of compliance with the mandatory pre-requisite cannot be termed as a valid sanction within the meaning of the UAPA.
The high court also held arrest and seizure in the case invalid, noting the police failed to abide by the norms laid down under the UAPA, besides the failure to prove electronic evidence against the accused.
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