In a recent development, a Rampur court convicted Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, alongside his wife Tazeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam, on Wednesday over a 2019 fake birth certificate scandal, imposing a seven-year jail term on each. Following the verdict, the accused trio was ushered into judicial custody, awaiting transfer to prison from the court premises, as confirmed by prosecution representative, Arun Parkash Saxena.
The sentence, termed as the maximum seven-year punishment, was handed down by MP-MLA court magistrate Shobit Bansal. The conviction elicited a vehement response from Samajwadi Party head, Akhilesh Yadav, who perceived the judgement as a religiously-motivated attack against Khan. He accused adversaries of targeting Khan due to his religious background and for founding a university.
The original complaint, filed by BJP MLA Akash Saxena, alleged that Khan and his spouse facilitated fraudulent birth certificates for their son from Lucknow and Rampur, aiding his electoral eligibility. The false documents displayed contrasting birth dates in 1990 and 1993, respectively. This conviction further dims Abdullah Azam’s political career, already tainted by a prior two-year imprisonment sentence from a Moradabad court for wrongful restraint and assault on a public servant.
The convictions also ripple into the political sphere, as the Representation of the People Act, 1951, mandates a disqualification period for any elected representative sentenced to over two years of imprisonment.
This provision had previously seen Azam Khan lose his legislative assembly seat post a three-year jail term sentence for a 2019 hate speech incident. The seasoned politician, Azam Khan, acclaimed for a decade-long tenure representing Rampur and founding the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University, faces a challenging path ahead amidst these legal and political tribulations.