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GN Saibaba was a Delhi University teacher of English until the college he worked at, Ram Lal Anand College, terminated his services last year.
He had joined the college in 2003 and was an Assistant Professor in the English department. He had been suspended in 2014, after he was arrested by the Maharashtra police for suspected Maoist links.
Ever since his suspension in 2014, his family received only half the salary for his position. Finally on March 31, 2021,the principal of the college signed a memorandum terminating his services “with immediate effect”.
In March 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district had convicted him and others, including a journalist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student, for alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country.
According to the prosecution in the case, the documents listed under Saibaba’s name included a letter to his daughter’s school headmaster, one to his college, and another to a Hyderabad institute. It said that those written under the name ‘Prakash’ included letters to Maoist bosses in which he spoke about his handicap, his frustration in Delhi and his wish to work underground instead of managerial work.
The court had held Saibaba and the others guilty under various provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The Bombay High Court’s division bench of Justices Rohit Deo and Anil Pansare had subsequently allowed an appeal filed by Saibaba challenging the 2017 order of the trial court convicting him and sentencing him to life imprisonment. On Friday, he was acquitted.
According to his wife Vasantha, the wheelchair bound Saibaba suffers from “several life-threatening ailments”, including “Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy with left ventricular dysfunction, hypertension, kidney stones, a cyst in his brain, pancreatic problems, attenuation of the shoulder and arm muscles, and nerves resulting in partial paralysis of his upper limbs”, and is 90% disabled.
Earlier this year, Saibaba had threatened to go on an indefinite hunger strike inside his jail cell in protest against the installation of a CCTV camera which allegedly captures footage of the toilet and bathing area. His wife and brother wrote to the Maharashtra Home Minister on Saturday seeking the removal of the CCTV camera.
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