In the dual PAN Card case, Azam Khan, a leader of Samajwadi party (SP) and son Abdullah Azam were sentenced to seven years of imprisonment by a Special MP-MLA Magistrate Court in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh on Monday.
It was brought before the Civil Lines Police Station in Rampur in December 2019 against Khan and his son by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Akash Saxena. Saxena, in his complaint, claimed that the two had two PAN Cards with a different date of birth (DoBs).
Azam Khan, Son Abdullah Azam Sentenced to 7 Years
Saxena claimed with Khan and his son that the two PAN Cards had been purchased by means of forged documents, and were being utilized by them to make banking transactions and details of income tax.
This follows the release of the Khan on bail in September this year by the Rampur jail following the arrest where he was charged with over 100 cases after spending up to 23 months in jail. He had however just been cleared of suit, in an alleged abuse of his official government letterhead and seal to make defamatory statements of the BJP and its ideological mentor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The alleged incident had occurred during the time of Khan as a minister in the government of Uttar Pradesh in 2014. Nevertheless, a Lucknow court threw out the case, claiming that there were no evidences against the leader of Samajwadi Party.
Based on the entire case, the court believes that the accusations on accused Azam Khan have not been established beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, he should be free to go by the ruling of the court.
Azam Khan Jailed Again: Legal Troubles Mount
In the meantime, Khan has been attempting to keep active in the state politics after getting out of the jail. Last month, he also met the head of Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav and stated that he has a kinship relationship with the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
He also took the BJP government in the state to task and indicated that the law and order has failed miserably in UP.
On November 6, he informed news agency PTI that law and order had become law and order se ‘law’ gayab hai yahan sirf ‘order’ chal raha hai (Law and order se 2013, but in law and order, the law has vanished: order only remains).
