Azam Khan, MLA son Abdullah get two Years in Jail for Staging Protest on Highway

New Delhi: Veteran Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan and his MLA son Abdullah Azam Khan were on Monday (February 13, 2023) sentenced to two years in jail in a 15-year-old case by a court in Uttar Pradesh. The judge of the MP-MLA court in Moradabad, Smita Goswami, awarded the jail term to SP leaders and also slapped a fine of Rs 3,000 each on them.

An FIR against Azam Khan, Abdullah Azam, who is an MLA from Suar constituency in UP, and seven others was lodged in 2008 at Moradabad's Chhajlait police station. 

They were booked after they staged a protest on a state highway on January 29, 2008, as their cavalcade was stopped by police for checking in the wake of an attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh on December 31, 2007.

While Khan and Azam were sentenced to two years in jail under section 353 (criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and other provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the seven other accused were exonerated.

The court, however, has granted bail to both Khan and Azam.

Earlier last month, the Supreme Court had refused to transfer criminal cases against Azam Khan, pending in a Rampur special court, outside Uttar Pradesh on the ground of alleged "persecution".

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices SA Nazeer and PS Narasimha on January 4 said it needed more cogent reasons for transferring the ongoing criminal cases against Khan.

"I will not get justice in the state. I am being persecuted... It is not a judge... It is the state. Everywhere, the situation will be the same inside the state," senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Khan, remonstrated.

The senior lawyer claimed he will not get a fair trial in the state and, to buttress his charge of bias, he referred to Khan's conviction in a case even when he had challenged an interim order of the lower court and his appeal was pending in the high court.

The case pertained to the alleged fabrication of the birth certificate of Khan's son and the plea in the high court was pending when he was convicted by the trial court.

In November last year, the top court had rejected a plea challenging the 2019 order of the Allahabad High Court that set aside the election of Abdullah to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in 2017.

The litigation related to the existence of two birth certificates of Abdullah Azam who allegedly gave the wrong date of birth while filing his nomination papers for the 2017 poll.

The high court had ruled that he was not qualified to contest the election as he was below 25 years of age when he filed his nomination papers as the SP candidate from the Suar constituency in 2017.

Khan was recently also convicted in a criminal case related to hate speech and was disqualified as an MLA from the Rampur Sadar Assembly.