Azam Khan, a Samajwadi party leader, was arrested including his wife and son in Dual Certificate Case on 18th October 2023. He was a MLA from Rampur Sadar constituency.
Dual Certificate Case:
The case started in January 2019 when Akash Saxena , a BJP MLA, filed the case against Azam Khan. He was accused of making 2 birth certificates for Abdullah Khan,his son, with different Date of Births and places. One certificate was made from Rampur Municipality while the other from Lucknow region.
This trio was arrested long back in Feb 2020 itself but got bail turn by turn. Tanzeen got bail in December 2020, then Abdullah in January 2022 and then finally Azam Khan himself in May 2022.
Final Verdict:
The final verdict of the case is released today i.e. 18 October. The trio i.e. Azam Khan, Abdullah Khan and Tazeen Fatima (wife of Azam Khan) have been sentenced to imprisonment for 7 years, which is the maximum term of punishment under such a case. This case was fought in the Special Court for MP-MLAs and the magistrate was Shobit Bansal.
Azam Khan had filed an application requesting the special court to transfer his case to the Supreme Court which was rejected. It is said that he just wanted to distract the course of the case and get more time due to delay in the judicial process.
The case was fought between Sandeep Saxena, advocate of BJP MLA and Arun Prakash Saxena, District govt counsel.
Special Court for MP-MLA:
To increase the faith and transparency in Judiciary, Supreme Court came up with the idea of making special courts for lawmakers i.e. MPs and MLAs in 2017. And following this, 12 special courts were established to fast-track the cases pending against politicians. However, in 2020, a report was released by the Supreme Court which mentioned that there were around 5000 criminal cases still pending against them which included 2556 MPs and MLAs, which is a serious concern.
Income tax raids on Azam Khan:
There has been another trial going on for Azam Khan in recent September when he was accused of tax evasion. For 3 continuous days, there was an Income tax raid on the residences of this SP leader. Around 30 different locations in UP and MP were searched which were related to Azam Khan or his associates. Cities like Ghaziabad, Meerut, Rampur, Lucknow, Saharanpur, etc were searched by IT personnels at the places which were linked to him somehow.
Hate Speech Case:
In 2019, another case was filed against Azam Khan in which he was given 3 years of jail imprisonment that led to him being disqualified by the House. In this case, he was accused of making hate and inflammatory speeches and accusing the officials of Rampur, PM Narendra Modi, and Yogi Adithyanath (UP’s CM). These accusations were made during the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 when he was addressing a rally in Khatanagria village.
Possession of Waqf Board:
Another case was filed against him regarding having illegal possession of a Waqf Board property. Waqf is a charited property that is given for religious and pious purposes. It cannot be sold or used for private purposes. However, in this case, Allahabad High Court granted him bail and no final verdict has come till date.
In total, 81 cases are filed against Azam Khan which are related to multiple aspects like hate speech, criminal trespass, cheating, illegal land holding etc. And in almost 40 cases, his son and his wife Tanzeen Fatima, who is an ex-MLA, are involved.
Finally, the trio has been convicted for their crimes and taken into judicial custody and will be directly taken to the jail from there.
