The Supreme Court in a special hearing on Saturday stayed the Bombay HC order acquitting ex- Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba and five others in connection with alleged Maoist links, Live Law reported.
A bench of Justices M R Shah and Bela M Trivedi passed the order after a nearly two-hour long hearing.
Saibaba, 52, who is wheel-chair bound, was acquitted by a Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Friday, along with five others, in connection with alleged Maoist links, reported news agency PTI.
All the accused were booked under several sections of the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and Indian Penal Code (IPC).
“High Court has not considered the merits. High Court has discharged the accused only on the ground that the sanction was invalid and some material which was placed before the appropriate authority and sanction was granted on the same day,” the Court said in its order, as quoted by Live Law.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s, who appeared for Maharashtra Police, on Friday said that the acquittal was not on merit but for want of appropriate sanction to prosecute him under UAPA, reported PTI. Mehta said that offences committed by Saibaba, who is currently in the Nagpur Central Jail, were “against the nation”.
Also Read: Former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba acquitted in Maoist links case
Pleading before the Supreme Court bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli, Mehta said that the matter will become “infructuous” as the accused will be released from jail if the “case is not urgently listed”.
The SC judges had said the apex court cannot stay the acquittal as parties are not before them, and that the bench has not gone through the case file or the verdict of the Bombay HC.
On Friday, the Bombay HC had ordered the release of Saibaba and five others from jail, noting that the sanction order issued to prosecute the accused in the case under the stringent provisions of the UAPA was “bad in law and invalid”.
Also Read: Maoist links: DU professor GN Saibaba, JNU student and three others get life imprisonment
The ex-professor, who was arrested in February 2014, had filed an appeal challenging a 2017 order of the trial court convicting and sentencing him to life imprisonment.
Apart from Saibaba, the high court on Friday acquitted farmers Mahesh Kariman Tirki, Pandu Pora Narote, Hem Keshavdatta Mishra who is a student and journalist Prashant Sanglikar, all of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment. A labourer named Vijay Tirki was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Narote had died during the pendency of the appeal, according to PTI.