Maoist links case: Maharashtra moves Supreme Court challenging GN Saibaba’s acquittal by Bombay HC

financialexpress.com:

The Maharashtra government on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court against the decision of the Bombay High Court acquitting former Delhi University professor GN Saibabab and five others in a case of alleged links to Maoists.

Earlier in the day, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court set aside the verdict of a sessions court which had convicted Saibaba and others in 2017.

The verdict by a bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and Valmiki SA Menezes was delivered after rehearing the appeal by Saibaba after the Supreme Court set aside the October 2022 acquittal order by an earlier bench of the High Court and remanded the matter back to the High Court for a fresh hearing.

Currently lodged in Nagpur Central Jail, Saibaba is wheelchair-bound and 99 per cent disabled. He was convicted by a sessions court in Gadhchiroli in March 2017 on charges of alleged Maoist links and involvement in activities amounting to waging war against the country.

Saibaba had then moved the Bombay HC against the order which allowed his appeal and acquitted him on October 14, 2022. The Maharashtra government had then approached the Supreme Court against the order. On October 15, the order on Saibaba’s acquittal was suspended by the Supreme Court. The HC’s order was eventually set aside by the apex court on April 19, 2023.