SC suspends Bombay HC judgement discharging G N Saibaba
New Delhi(PTI): The Supreme Court on Saturday suspended the Bombay High Court order acquitting former Delhi University (DU) professor G N Saibaba and others in a Maoist-links case.
The high court acquitted Saibaba and others in the case on Friday.
An apex court bench of justices M R Shah and Bela M Trivedi, which sat on a non-working day to hear the matter, also rejected Saibaba's request for putting him under house arrest in view of his physical disability and health conditions.
It stayed the release of all the accused in the case, including Saibaba, from jail, as directed by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.
It sought responses from Saibaba and the other accused on a plea moved by the Maharashtra government against the high court order.
More than eight years after his arrest, the Bombay High Court acquitted Saibaba on Friday and ordered his release from jail, noting that the sanction order issued to prosecute the accused in the case under the stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) was "bad in law and invalid".
The Nagpur bench of the high court allowed Saibaba's appeal, challenging a 2017 order of the trial court that convicted him in the case and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Apart from Saibaba, the court acquitted Mahesh Kariman Tirki, Pandu Pora Narote (both farmers), Hem Keshavdatta Mishra (student) and Prashant Sanglikar (journalist), who were sentenced to life imprisonment, and Vijay Tirki (labourer), who was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Narote died during the pendency of the appeal.
Saibaba, 52, who is wheelchair-bound due to a physical disability, is currently lodged in the Nagpur central prison. He was arrested in February 2014.
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NEET student hangs self in Rajasthan's Sikar
Jaipur (PTI): A student preparing for the NEET examination allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in a rented room in Rajasthan's Sikar on Friday, police said.
According to the police, the student allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan using his sister's scarf while one sister was attending coaching classes and the other was in the bathroom.
He had appeared in the NEET UG exam 2026, which was cancelled due to paper leak, they said.
Udyog Nagar SHO Rajesh Kumar said that the deceased, identified as Pradeep Meghwal, was a resident of Kanika ki Dhani village in Jhunjhunu's Gudha Gaudji area.
He had been living in a rented room in Sikar's Jaldhari Nagar area with his two sisters while preparing for NEET over the last three years.
His elder sister later found him hanging and informed the landlord and police after bringing him down, officials said.
The SHO said the body was kept at SK Hospital mortuary, and a postmortem had not been conducted.
The student's father, Rajesh Kumar Meghwal, told police that Pradeep's NEET examination had gone well and the family was expecting him to score around 650 marks.
Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot expressed grief over the incident and linked it to anxiety among students after reports of irregularities and paper leaks in NEET 2026.
Pilot said repeated paper leak incidents and cancellation of examinations were affecting students' mental health and demanded a time-bound investigation and strict action against those responsible.
