Professor GN Saibaba's Death Is A Wake-Up Call To Prevent Abuse Of UAPA Against Dissenters
His tragic death exposes the harsh challenges the criminal justice system offers to those who question the State's power.
A brilliant academic, who took up the cause of human rights, had to suffer ten years of brutal incarceration for trumped-up charges under the notorious anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, simply because his social activism displeased the State. Though he was acquitted not just once but twice, his freedom was short-lived.
Within a few months after the Bombay High Court, in March this year, acquitted former Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba and five others after finding absolutely no evidence against them for Maoist links so as to attract the UAPA provisions, he died at the age of 57 years due to post-surgical complications on October 12. He had undergone a gallbladder removal surgery, following which he developed complications. He had to suffer over 10 years of brutal incarceration as an undertrial prisoner before the Court found him innocent. The stringent provisions of the UAPA allows the State to inverse the 'bail is the rule' and 'innocent until proven guilty' principles, enabling the trapping of activists and dissidents, who raise uncomfortable questions at the establishment.
Saibaba, who lived with 90% disability and relied on a wheelchair for mobility, suffered immense physical deterioration during his imprisonment. He developed serious ailments in prison, affecting various organs, including the heart and gall bladder. In his prison memoir titled “Why do you fear my way so much?”, Saibaba wrote that the prison term put him under “ excruciating relentless pain”, and “one after the other, my organs started bursting”. He said that the prison conditions have have reduced him to subhuman and inhuman levels
“My vocal chords acquired lesions making my voice a thin and inaudible squeak. My heart broke with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. My brain has started having blackouts with a condition called syncope. My kidneys are silted with pebbles; my gallbladder gathered stones and pancreas grew a tail of pain called pancreatitis. Nerve lines in my left shoulder broke under the conditions of my arrest, known as brachial plexopathy. More and more organs of silence replaced the original. I have been living with explosive and shooting pain day in and day out. I am living on the margins of life,” he wrote.
Despite his deteriorating health, the Courts repeatedly rejected his applications seeking bail on medical grounds. He was even denied parole to attend the funeral of his mother. In a public interaction after his release in March this year, Saibaba was in tears when he spoke about how he could not meet his mother for the last time. “I couldn't see my mother one last time before her death because I was denied parole. This is a denial of basic Human Rights,” he said, breaking down. In a country where rapists and murderers and rioters with political patronage get parole and remission at the drop of a hat, the denial of the basic rights to those persecuted for 'thought-crimes' should trouble anyone with a conscience.
One must remember that Saibaba was acquitted not just once, but twice. In October 2022, the Bombay High Court found that the trial was vitiated as there was no valid UAPA sanction, and discharged Saibaba and five co-accused, ordering their immediate release. However, the very next day, in an extraordinary sitting held on a Saturday, the Supreme Court stayed their release. The Saturday sitting to stay their release raised troubling questions. Eventually, the Supreme Court remitted the matter to the High Court, for fresh consideration by another bench.
In the second round, the High Court acquitted the accused on merits. It is to be noted that it was not an acquittal on mere technicalities or on the benefit of doubt. Rather, the High Court found that the evidence in the case was wholly unbelievable and found absolutely no basis for the UAPA charges. The malicious nature of the investigation and prosecution is evident from the manner in which the High Court discarded the alleged seizures of incriminating materials from Saibaba's Delhi University residence, after elaborately laying down several reasons. The Court was surprised to note that the police chose an illiterate person as a seizure witness , despite the availability of educated persons in the University campus. Also, the seizure was a closed-door affair with Saibaba and the witness kept out. The failure to record the hash-value of the electronic gadgets also raised the High Court's suspicions, leading it to conclude that the prosecution has not proved the seizure of the materials from Saibaba's residence. The Court further held that the UAPA offence of terrorism can't be established merely on the basis of alleged downloading of materials containing Communist or Naxal philosophy.
"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," the High Court observed.
Although the prosecution rushed to the Supreme Court appealing against the judgment, in the second round, the Supreme Court refused to stay it, prima facie saying that the High Court's judgment was “well-reasoned” and pointing out that the accused have the benefit of two orders of acquittal.
While discussing Saibaba's predicament, one must not forget the name of another co-accused in the case, Pandu Pora Narote, who died as an undertrial prisoner in August 2022, before getting to see his name cleared.
The predicament of Saibaba and Narote immediately evokes memories of the shocking death of Father Stan Swamy while under custody in the Bhima Koregaon case, another UAPA case against activists over alleged Maoist links. These cases illustrate how the process itself becomes the punishment under UAPA, with the accused enduring prolonged detentions without a trial. The words of former Supreme Court judge Justice Aftab Alam in a public address in 2021 resonate deeply : "Where has this draconian law in the world's largest democracy taken us? The results are all there for everyone to see. It stares us in the face in the death of Father Stan Swamy without a trial. There are scores of Indians who get acquitted and come out of jail, with a broken life and practically no future! I submit that the UAPA has failed us on both counts- constitutional freedom and national security!"
It is high time that the human costs extracted by these unjust detentions under UAPA are calculated and accountability is fixed on those investigating officers who trapped innocents by misusing the statute. The Courts, instead of merely acquitting or discharging the accused, should think of measures to compensate them for their liberty and dignity lost during prison term. The State should extend a healing touch to the UAPA victims, through rehabilitation measures to enable them to piece together their shattered lives . Otherwise, the constitutional guarantee of personal liberty will remain only an empty promise.
In a recent judgment, the Supreme Court made a pertinent observation that in cases of clean acquittal, where the accused had undergone long years of custody without trial, a claim for compensation might be possible against the State. "Some day, the courts, especially the Constitutional Courts, will have to take a call on a peculiar situation that arises in our justice delivery system. There are cases where clean acquittal is granted by the criminal courts to the accused after very long incarceration as an undertrial. When we say clean acquittal, we are excluding the cases where the witnesses have turned hostile or there is a bona fide defective investigation. In such cases of clean acquittal, crucial years in the life of the accused are lost. In a given case, it may amount to violation of rights of the accused under Article 21 of the Constitution which may give rise to a claim for compensation,” the Court said.
Professor Saibaba's death should be a wake-up call for meaningful reforms to prevent the misuse of draconian laws against dissenters. The outpouring of grief and outrage following his death must lead to positive systemic changes. Because, Saibaba himself despised sympathy and wanted only solidarity.
“I hope none of you should feel sympathetic to my condition. I don't believe in sympathy, I only believe in solidarity. I intended to tell you my story only because I believe that it is also your story. Also because I believe my freedom is your freedom."- Why do you fear my way so much?Poems and Letters from Prison, G.N Saibaba.