Plea Against Ex Professor GN Saibaba's Release In Supreme Court Shortly

A plea against the acquittal of GN Saibaba, a paraplegic academic arrested on charges of "waging war" against the country with the help of Maoists eight years ago, by the Bombay High Court, will be heard by the Supreme Court on Saturday.

The top court agreed on Friday to hear the plea by the Maharashtra government to put the Bombay High Court order on hold after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta's forceful pitch that the acquittal was not justifiable under the stringent anti-terror law UAPA.

Mounting a vociferous argument against the release of wheelchair-bound former Delhi University professor, held in the Nagpur Central Jail, Mr Mehta said the offence committed by him were "against the nation".

However, he was first turned down by a Supreme Court bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli.

"You move an application before the registry for taking administrative decision on urgent listing of the matter from the Chief Justice of India," the bench advised the Solicitor General, who appeared for Maharashtra Police.

Later in the evening, the Supreme Court website said the matter was listed for hearing on Saturday, usually a holiday at the top court, at 11 am by a bench of justices MR Shah and Bela M Trivedi.

Earlier in its order, the court noted: "At this stage, we deem it appropriate to mention that the proceedings have been mentioned before this Court since the Bench presided over by the Chief Justice has risen for the day."

Mr Mehta had pleaded before the two judges, saying, "We have not lost on merit but for want of sanction. The matter will become infructuous as they will be released from jail, if not (the case is) urgently listed."

"The accused were involved with CPI (Maoist) and the high court acquitted them. The offence committed by these persons is serious in nature and against the nation. Subsequently, UAPA was invoked and the question before the high court was whether UAPA was correctly invoked or not," Mr Mehta said.

The bench, however, contended the matter will not become pointless.

"It will not become infructuous. They have an acquittal order in their favour. We cannot stay the acquittal order without issuing notice to them and would list the matter for Monday (October 17) and may take the matter on top of the board," the court said.

Earlier in the day, more than eight years after his arrest, the Bombay High Court acquitted Mr Saibaba and ordered his release from jail, noting that the sanction order issued to prosecute the accused in the case under the UAPA was "bad in law and invalid".

The Nagpur bench of the high court allowed the appeal filed by Mr Saibaba challenging a 2017 order of the trial court convicting and sentencing him to life imprisonment.

Apart from Mr Saibaba, the court acquitted Mahesh Kariman Tirki, Pandu Pora Narote (both farmers), Hem Keshavdatta Mishra (student) and Prashant Sanglikar (journalist), who were sentenced to life imprisonment, and Vijay Tirki (labourer) who was awarded 10 years in jail. Narote died during the appeal process.

Mr Saibaba, 52, who is wheelchair-bound due to a physical disability, is currently lodged in the Nagpur central prison. He was arrested in February 2014.

In March 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district convicted Mr Saibaba and others, including a journalist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student, of alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities "amounting to waging war against the country".