PRAYAGRAJ – The Allahabad High Court on Friday granted relief to senior Samajwadi Party leader Mohd Azam Khan and his family in a fake birth certificate case. Hearing the matter, the court put a stay on Khan’s seven-year sentence.
However, the sentences of his wife Tanzeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam were not stayed, although they have been granted bail. Stating that all three have been granted bail, Khan’s advocate Sharad Sharma said, “Azam Khan’s conviction has been stayed, while Tazeen Fatima and Abdullah Azam’s convictions have been rejected.”
The case dates back to January 3, 2019, when Akash Saxena, now a BJP MLA from Rampur, filed a police case alleging that former Samajwadi Party MP Azam Khan and his wife Tanzeen Fatima got two birth certificates made for their son Abdullah Azam Khan.
The sessions court awarded seven-year imprisonment to Khan, his wife, and their son in the alleged forgery case on October 18, 2023. According to the charge sheet, in the certificate issued by the Rampur municipality, Abdullah Azam’s date of birth was mentioned as January 1, 1993. The other certificate showed he was born in Lucknow on September 30, 1990. The trio was found guilty under Sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 472 (making or possessing counterfeit seal, etc. with intent to commit forgery), and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Azam Khan was also disqualified from the Assembly last year after a court sentenced him to three years in jail in a 2019 hate speech case. Khan had won the Rampur Sadar Assembly seat in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls for a record 10th time. He then gave up the Rampur parliamentary seat, which he won in 2019. -IANS
