DU Professor G N Saibaba was arrested for alleged links with Maoists. (PTI/File)The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Monday rejected the prosecution plea to not allow two of the three doctors of Professor G N Saibaba’s choice to examine him on Wednesday at the central prison in Pune, where he is lodged for alleged links with Maoists.
The wheel-chair bound activist had moved the HC bench initially with a plea that he should be allowed to go to Hyderabad for two months to undergo a health check-up from the doctors of his choice. The court had rejected his plea but directed that arrangements be made to get the doctors of his choice to Nagpur to examine him at the Government Super-Specialty Hospital.
The court had also ruled that Saibaba’s wife Vasantha Kumari and brother G Ramadevudu be allowed to accompany him during the examination. Accordingly, Saibaba had named three doctors — senior resident doctor Haji Bhatti from New Delhi AIIMS, neurosurgeon N Prasad from Kazipeth and interventional cardiologist Gopinath from Spandan Hospital in Khamnam.
Prosecution lawyer Prashant Sathianathan, however, claimed before the court that Gopinath and Prasad were Maoist sympathisers and even had links with them.
Following this, the vacation bench of Justice Ravi Deshpande said that there was no need to recall the earlier order. The court, however, but laid down stringent precautionary measures to be undertaken for the scheduled check-up on Wednesday.
The measures suggested by the court included that the visiting doctors should examine Saibaba one by one in the presence of doctors at the hospital, they would communicate only in Hindi or English, if prosecution deems it fit there can be CCTV surveillance and video recording and Saibaba shouldn’t be administered any medicine or made to undergo surgery.
