Senior Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan and his son Abdullah Azam were on Monday sentenced to seven years in jail each by a special MP/MLA court in a 2019 case for obtaining two PAN cards using different dates of birth.
After the verdict, Khan was taken from the Rampur court to the district jail under heavy security. “What is there to say now? It is the court's decision,” he said while being led to prison.
Asked about the seven-year sentence, the 77-year-old leader added, "It is fine. If they have considered me guilty, they have given the punishment."
Special magistrate Shobhit Bansal found both father and son guilty after examining documentary evidence and witness testimonies, prosecution officer Rakesh Kumar Maurya said.
Maurya, who represented the prosecution along with advocate Swadesh Sharma, said Khan’s seven-year term has been reduced by the number of days already spent in judicial custody.
Khan had been released from the Sitapur jail on September 23 after 23 months in custody. Prior to this, he had spent 27 straight months in jail.
Maurya said the prosecution will review the judgment and may file an appeal if the punishment is deemed inadequate. When asked if Azam Khan and Abdullah would be taken into custody following the conviction, Maurya said, "Yes, absolutely."
The case, lodged in 2019 at Rampur’s Civil Lines police station by BJP leader Akash Saxena, invoked IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using forged document) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
According to the prosecution, Abdullah obtained a PAN card from the Income Tax Department showing January 1, 1993, as his date of birth, matching his school and high school certificates and his State Bank of India account records.
The court found that Abdullah had procured the forged PAN card "in conspiracy with his father" and submitted it in official records.
The court handed down varying prison terms under different IPC sections. For cheating under Section 420, both received three years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000. Under Section 467, they got seven years’ imprisonment and a Rs 10,000 fine.
Section 468 carried three years’ imprisonment and a fine, Section 471 two years’ imprisonment and a fine, and Section 120-B one year’s imprisonment with a fine.
Maurya said the seven-year sentence under Section 467, which carries a maximum punishment of life imprisonment, was the maximum permissible within the magistrate’s jurisdiction.
Khan has faced 84 cases, including charges of land grab, graft, criminal intimidation, goat theft, and cheating. This is his fourth conviction; he has been acquitted in four cases, with others still pending.