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Journalism of Courage
The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside the Bombay High Court order discharging former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba and five others, who were convicted over Maoist links, and remanded the matter back to the high court to be decided afresh by a different bench.
A bench of Justices M R Shah and C T Ravikumar ordered that the matter be decided by the high court within four months. The court said that a different bench should hear the same on all aspects in the interest of propriety as the one which discharged them had already formed an opinion.
Hearing an appeal by the Maharashtra government, the Supreme Court had on October 15 last year suspended the Bombay High Court order which discharged Saibaba and the others in the case, citing the absence of valid sanction for prosecution under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Suspending the order, the Supreme Court noted that the high court had not gone into the merits of the case or that of the trial court judgment convicting them or “the seriousness and gravity of the offences for which the accused were convicted”.
“The HC did not look into merits, but found a shortcut,” the bench remarked orally. It added that “the offences are very serious against the sovereignty and integrity of the country” and further said that it “is prima facie of the opinion that a detailed scrutiny is required so far as the impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court is concerned”.
Citing absence of valid sanction under UAPA, and declaring the trial proceedings in a Gadchiroli court “null and void”, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court had on October 14 discharged Saibaba, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017 in the case. It also acquitted four others in the case. A sixth accused had died in August 2022.
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