NEW DELHI, Oct 29: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday acquitted a Kashmiri teacher and a Sikh woman in the parliament attack case, but it rejected the plea of two other Kashmiri men to reconsider their death sentence awarded by a lower court.

The division bench comprising Justice Usha Mehra and Justice Pradeep Nandrajog acquitted Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, an Arabic teacher at the Delhi University, freeing him from the death sentence passed by an anti-terrorism court.

The judges also set aside a five-year sentence on Navjot Sandhu alias Afshan Guru, but retained the death verdict on her husband Shaukat Hussein and Mohammed Afzal. All four were accused of conspiracy in the attack on the Parliament House on Dec 13, 2001.

Lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who represented Mr Geelani, said the verdict would play an important role in calming the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

The police had arrested Afzal, Shaukat, his wife Afshan and Geelani as the alleged masterminds behind the attack which had led to a military standoff with Pakistan.

On Dec 16, a lower court found the three men, who had been tried under the newly introduced anti-terrorism POTA law, guilty and sentenced them to death.

Mr Geelani had been convicted under POTA and the Indian Penal Code for allegedly being part of the conspiracy and waging war against the state. Sandhu was charged with concealing the conspiracy and sentenced to five years imprisonment.