A new high court Bench has been directed to decide the matter preferably within four months.
——-
ON Wednesday, a Supreme Court Bench, comprising Justices M.R. Shah and C.T. Ravikumar, set aside the order of the Bombay High Court acquitting former Delhi University professor Dr G.N. Saibaba, among others, in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) case for the want of sanction against him. It remanded the matter back to the high court to decide the case on merits.
The court was hearing a plea by the Maharashtra government challenging the order of the high court that had overturned a 2017 decision of a sessions court, and allowed the appeals against the conviction and life sentence imposed on Saibaba and five others.
Reportedly, yesterday Senior Advocate R. Basant, appearing for the accused persons, proposed to the Bench that the matter be remanded to the high court to be heard afresh. He, however, sought a day’s time to discuss this proposal with the accused persons, in order to take appropriate instructions. Consequently, the Bench deferred the hearing of the matter to Wednesday.
Subsequently, earlier today, Basant and senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, appearing on behalf of the accused persons, submitted that they had no objection to the setting aside of the order of the high court. Basant requested the Bench to keep the option for applying for bail open, since some of the accused persons are seriously unwell.
The Bench granted the prayer of the Additional Solicitor General of India to allow the state government to contend before the high court that on the conviction of the accused persons by the trial court, the question of sanction may not be relevant. The Bench, in its order, indicated the high court must consider the same. Further, at the request of Ramakrishnan, the Bench recorded in its order the permission to allow the accused persons to counter such contentions of the State.
In its order, dictated by Justice Shah, the Bench observed that the order of the Nagpur Bench of the high court had acquitted the accused solely on the ground of invalidity and absence of sanction procured to prosecute them. The Bench opined that the high court had failed to decide the appeal on merits.
Without entering into the merits of the case, the Bench remitted back the matter to the high court to decide the appeal on their own merits afresh, including the question of sanction. The Bench observed that all contentions and defences are kept open to be considered by the high court on their own merits and on the basis of the evidence that is already on record. It directed the high court to decide the appeal at the earliest, preferably within a period of four months from the date of the present order.
In conclusion, the Bench, in its order, requested the Chief Justice of the high court to place the appeal for final hearing before a Bench other than the Bench that passed the order of acquittal.
Background
Dr Saibaba, 55, who is wheelchair-bound due to a 90 percent physical disability and multiple health issues, is currently lodged at the Nagpur Central Prison. He was arrested in May 2014.
Sanction to prosecute the other accused, who were arrested earlier, under the UAPA, was granted in 2014, and then against Dr Saibaba in 2015.
In March 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district convicted Dr Saibaba and others, including a journalist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University student, for alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country. The court had held Dr Saibaba and the others guilty under various provisions of the UAPA and the Indian Penal Code. Dr Saibaba was sentenced to life imprisonment.
More than eight years after his arrest, on October 13, 2022, the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur division Bench acquitted Saibaba and ordered his release from jail, noting that the sanction order issued to prosecute him in the case under the provisions of the UAPA was “bad in law and invalid”. Later in the afternoon on the same day, the National Investigation Agency moved the Supreme Court, challenging the high court’s decision acquitting Dr Saibaba.
In a special sitting held on October 15, a division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Shah and Bela S. Trivedi, suspended the order of the Bombay High Court, observing that the high court virtually took a short-cut route in the matter. That Bench also suspended the order of the Bombay High Court with regard to the acquittal of five other convicts in the same case due to improper or irregular sanctions to prosecute them.
Click here to read the order.
