AA Edit | Saibaba's acquittal is a lesson and a warning

The second acquittal of former Delhi university faculty Prof. G.N. Saibaba and five others in a case registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court comes out as a mixed bag for those believe in the rule of law and fair administration of criminal justice. While the court’s reasoning to set the wheelchair-bound academician free offers a sense of relief and can be seen as a reassertion of democratic rights and the freedom of speech and expression, a closer look at the series of events that preceded the second episode stands as testimony to how the state can hunt down a citizen should it choose to, even misusing and abusing the machinery of the law and how the judiciary, at times, fails to stand up to it.

Prof. Saibaba and the others were arrested in 2014 for alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country. In the landmark judgment, the high court has ruled that downloading material including violent videos related to Communist or Maoist ideologies which are available on Internet, or even reading them, cannot be a crime under UAPA. It has said the prosecution has failed to link the accused with specific acts of violence or terrorism, which is essential to convict a person under the anti-terrorism law.

One should not lose sight of the fact that the court not only found the prosecution wanting in terms of presenting proof to convict them under UAPA but also that their very conviction by a sessions court in 2017 was vitiated as there was no proper sanction by the government to prosecute them as mandated by the law. In fact, another bench of the same high court had in 2022 come to the same conclusion on the question of a legally valid sanction and ordered their release.

The government then rushed to the Supreme Court to ensure that Prof. Saibaba, a 90 per cent handicapped person, was not released from prison, citing the gravity of the crime it had charged him with. The apex court went by the government argument and suspended the acquittal. Later the Supreme Court ordered the high court to revisit the case on merit. The second acquittal is on both counts — on merit as well as on mandatory government sanction.

Ever since his arrest in 2014, Prof. Saibaba, and others, have served close to 10 years in jail under an Act which many have criticised to be draconian having potential to be used against its critics by the government. As the high court had earlier pointed out, the state will have to wage the war against terrorism with all legitimate tools in its armoury but here went on a chase of unsuspecting citizens with little care for justice or even the mandates of the very same law.

The apex court, by stopping the release of the accused citing the nature of the charge, was not doing a favour to the rule of law just because it is the state’s job to worry about the charge. The court in itself is an independent adjudicator and dispenser of justice as per the law.

Let the state agencies take on terrorism with the tools the legislatures have equipped them with. But the misuse and abuse of such tools cannot be condoned for as long as we remain a constitutional democracy.