Veteran Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan and his MLA son Abdullah Azam Khan had staged a protest on a highway in Uttar Pradesh in 2008 as their cavalcade was stopped by police for checking in the wake of an attack on a CRPF camp.
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.
