The Maharashtra government on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court verdict acquitting former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba and five others accused of having links with Maoists, reported Bar and Bench.

Saibaba was first arrested in the case in May 2014 but was granted bail twice. He has been lodged in the Nagpur Central Jail since a sessions court convicted him on March 7, 2017.

Earlier on Tuesday, a bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and Valmiki SA Menezes set aside the 2017 judgement.

In its judgment, the High Court said that accessing content about Communist or Naxalite philosophy, including videos of a violent nature, was not inherently illegal unless there is evidence linking the accused to specific acts of violence or terrorism, reported Live Law.

“No evidence has been led by the prosecution by any witness to any incident, attack, act of violence or even evidence collected from some earlier scene of offence where a terrorist act has taken place, in order to connect the accused to such act, either by participating in its preparation or its direction or in any manner providing support to its commission,” said the court.

Apart from Saibaba, the High Court acquitted Mahesh Tirki, Pandu Pora Narote, Hem Keshwdatta Mishra, Prashant Rahi and Vijay Nan Tirki. Narote died in prison on August 26, 2022 due to swine flu.

Hours after the acquittal, the Maharashtra government filed an application in the High Court seeking a six-week stay on the order. The state told the court that it had approached the Supreme Court against the verdict and that implementing the judgment in the meantime would create serious repercussions, according to Live Law.

The High Court, however, dismissed the application.

On October 14, 2022, the High Court acquitted Saibaba, holding that a sessions court in Gadchiroli charged Saibaba under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act without sanction from the Centre.

Wheelchair-bound Saibaba, who is 90% disabled, was convicted by the trial court in 2017 for allegedly having links to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and a frontal organisation, the Revolutionary Democratic Front. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment.

In its 2022 judgement, the High Court said that the sanction order issued to prosecute the accused persons in the case under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was “bad in law and invalid”.

The court had said that while the state must fight terror with “unwavering resolve”, a civil democratic society could not sacrifice due process of law on account of perceived danger to national security.

However, the order was suspended by the Supreme Court a day later on a petition filed by the Maharashtra government. On April 19, 2023, a division bench of the top court comprising Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar set aside the acquittal order and remanded the matter to the High Court for fresh consideration.