NEW DELHI: "After 10 long years of struggle, justice has been delivered. I only hope there are no future obstacles to his very well-deserved freedom," said Vasantha, wife of former Delhi University professor
GN Saibaba
, who was arrested in 2014 allegedly because he and five others were members of the banned CPI (Maoist) and its frontal group Revolutionary Democratic Front.
The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court set aside the conviction of Saibaba and five others in a case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act on Tuesday, saying that the conviction of the accused people was 'unsustainable in the hands of the law' .
Vasantha expressed extreme happiness at the acquittal of her husband and the others. "Thank you to the lawyers who have been working on his case tirelessly," she said. "Thank you to all the human rights defenders, all the people who stood in solidarity with Dr GN Saibaba."
Gokalkonda Naga Saibaba, 55, taught at Ram Lal Anand College but was terminated from service by the college in March 2021. The college had suspended him in 2014 for his alleged
Maoist links
after the activist-academic's arrest in Delhi.
Speaking to TOI, Narendra Pandey, history professor and former colleague of Saibaba Ram Lal Anand College, said, "He was an excellent professor with a literary sensibility, a spokesperson for the downtrodden outside the classroom, of course. No teacher can take a partisan view in classes, cannot indoctrinate students either. He produced a PhD paper we are proud of."
Pandey was a governing body member in 2021 when he was the sole member to stand up for the arrested professor, asking the governing body not to act in haste before the courts decided Saibaba's guilt. "A few months later, when my tenure as a governing body member ended, and also after the current DU vice-chancellor, Yogesh Singh, was appointed, Saibaba was suspended. But till the time I was in the governing body as a teacher representative, I made sure to care about the rights of teachers," said Pandey. "The board was ideologically motivated to suspend Saibaba. The higher authorities claimed he was a sympathiser of the Naxalite movement."
TOI's attempt to seek a comment from Saibaba's other colleagues was met with silence. Pandey simply said, "People won't speak publicly about this matter." Being wheelchair-bound and going against the wave, Saibaba faced several challenges but emerged stronger than ever, said Pandey. "Academia has full freedom. There are certain forces like the judiciary that stand by us," he said.
The VC's response to TOI on Saibaba's acquittal was, "I am yet to read the entire judgement, but you see sometimes one can also get acquitted for lack of evidence."
English (US) ·