A court in Ayodhya on Monday sentenced a BJP legislator and two of his friends to five years in jail in a 32-year-old cheating and forgery case.

Indra Pratap Tiwari alias Khabbu, who was elected from Gosainganj Assembly seat of Faizabad-Ayodhya in 2017, and his friends Kripa Nidhan Tiwari and Phulchand Yadav were alleged to have submitted fake Intermediate marksheets to get admission in BSc in Saket Degree College, Ayodhya, in 1988.

Yaduvansh Ram Tripathi, the then principal of the college, had registered an FIR against the trio in 1989 and they were booked under IPC Sections 420 (cheating), 468, (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (fraud). Tripathi is no more but the college continued pursuing the case.

The MP-MLA special court of judge Puja Singh in Ayodhya found all three guilty and sentenced them to five years in jail. The police took them to the Faizabad district jail.