Three Maoist leaders arrested during the Left rule in 2005 and charged under the UAPA for “waging war against the nation” were declared “innocent” and acquitted by Calcutta High Court on Friday.

Two of the acquitted leaders — the CPI (Maoist)’s former secretary Patit Paban Haldar and its state committee member Santosh Debnath — had been awarded life term by a lower court in 2006.

Sushil Roy, a former member of the party’s politburo, had been sentenced to eight years but he died of cancer in 2015, two years after his release.

A division bench of the high court, led by Justice Sanjib Banerjee, on Friday held that the Midnapore court which had convicted the three had failed to scan properly whether the investigators could substantiate the charges.

Biswanath De, the additional sessions judge of West Midnapore, had sentenced Haldar and Debnath to rigorous life imprisonment.

Sources in the legal fraternity said the Trinamul government had not pursued the case with the same vigour as the Left regime. “It seems the Trinamul government has not taken the case so seriously. The government has decided not to challenge the high court verdict before the apex court,” a senior advocate said.

Police had claimed Roy and Haldar had been picked up from Tamajuri forest in Belpahari, West Midnapore.