New Delhi: Land-grabbing, forgery, cheating, getting houses of opponents demolished, and stealing ancient Persian books from a school are some of the charges levelled against Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan, who has 93 criminal cases pending against him in various districts of Uttar Pradesh.
On 19 May, the Supreme Court (SC) granted interim bail to Khan, paving the way for his release from jail where he was incarcerated for the last 27 months.
The case in which the top court bench of Justices L.N. Rao and B.R. Gavai ordered his release was the 88th registered against Khan, and pertained to allegations of forgery. Already on bail in 87 cases, Khan had approached the top court after the Allahabad High Court failed to hear his bail application.
Exercising its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 142, the top court granted Khan liberty to approach the appropriate court for regular bail.
In its order, the top court asked why the prosecution arrested Khan more than 18 months after it registered the case against him on 18 March, 2020. The bench noted that the arrest in this case was made just four days before the Allahabad High Court gave Khan bail in another matter.
Arguing in the Supreme Court, Khan’s lawyer alleged that the cases were part of a political witch-hunt by the Uttar Pradesh government, as all the FIRs were registered after the BJP came to power in the state in 2017. The majority of cases were registered in 2019, prior to the Lok Sabha elections and immediately thereafter.
But in a detailed counter filed before the SC, the Yogi Adityanath-led UP government refuted Khan’s accusations of “implicating him in false criminal cases” and furnished information about the 93 criminal cases pending against him.
To rebut the SP leader’s “baseless” claim that the FIRs were registered at the behest of the state, the government affidavit also gave nine instances where cases had not been registered despite complaints by private persons against Khan.
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The cases against Khan
Of the 93 cases, the state submitted that 61 were lodged by private parties and comprised allegations of land-grabbing, threatening, and beating. Nineteen cases relate to violation of the model code of conduct, while only 12 are on the complaint of police/government officials, pointed out the UP-government affidavit, which ThePrint has accessed.
The first set of 27 FIRs were registered in 2019 at Azeem Nagar police station in UP’s Rampur on the complaints of some farmers from Aliganj, who accused Khan of “covering their land within the boundary wall of his Jauhar University forcibly” without compensating the owners and without getting sale deeds executed.
Khan, the affidavit alleged, was supported by the then deputy superintendent of police (DSP) of the area, who is said to have threatened the farmers to stop them from protesting.
Eleven more FIRs registered in Rampur in 2019 allege that Khan forcefully took over an orphanage in 2016 when he was a cabinet minister in the UP government.
The complainants had been staying at the waqf property (charitable endowment under Islamic law), which they claimed had been allotted to their forefathers by the erstwhile royal family of the then princely state of Rampur. The complainants maintained the place by running a dairy. However, according to the FIR, Khan got the place vacated forcefully and established his school there.
“When [the government] changed and farmers of Aliganj lodged FIRs, then people of Yateemkhana Ghosiyan also lodged FIRs, earlier to this, nobody paid attention on their grievances,” stated the affidavit.
Another set of 11 FIRs claimed Khan had got the houses of complainants demolished forcefully because they were connected with his opponents.
Cheating and forgery
There are three cases of cheating in which Khan and his son Abdullah have been charged with procuring a forged birth certificate, two passports, and two PAN cards for the latter. While the FIR relating to the allegedly forged birth certificate is registered at Ganj police station in Rampur, the other two are with the Civil Lines police station in the same district.
The allegations are that Khan obtained a forged birth certificate from Lucknow Municipal Corporation, with the year of birth as 1990, to show that his son had turned 25 years old, making him eligible to contest the UP Assembly election. This certificate was used although Abdullah already had a birth certificate previously issued by the Rampur Municipality, which showed his year of birth as 1993, the UP affidavit claimed. Also, the son’s school records list the year of his birth as 1993.
Subsequently, Khan also allegedly obtained two PAN cards in his son’s name. The one carrying the wrong year of birth was used to fill up the application for Assembly elections and the details of the same PAN card were annexed with the bank account, it was alleged. Similarly, Khan’s son has two passports, one of which denotes 1990 as his year of birth and has been impounded by the passport department, the affidavit said.
Khan is further accused of fabricating a “waqfnama” to occupy land which in the revenue records is mentioned as enemy property. An enemy property is one that has been left behind by those who migrated to Pakistan during Partition.
According to the UP government, Khan managed to get the land recorded in the Shia Central Waqf Board, got his person appointed as the ‘Mutawalli’ and then covered it to make it part of his Jauhar University compound.
Khan is alleged to have even “wrongly recorded his relative’s name in revenue records to claim ownership of a land”, which otherwise was meant to be for a ‘hanging house’. This piece of land is attached with the district jail of Rampur, the affidavit submitted.
Another FIR registered at Ganj police station accuses Khan of taking a 100-year-old school— Aliya Arabic Persian school — under his unauthorised possession and removing ancient and historical books from there to keep them at Jauhar University.
The other serious “illegalities” on which the UP administration has not registered cases against Khan include blocking of public passage and unauthorised possession of a Public Works Department guest-house and a power house unit — both were allegedly made part of Jauhar University, but the state got them released later.
Charges of forceful possession of land belonging to the Scheduled Caste community and illegally taking over of the 100-year-old Oriental College were also levelled against Khan. However, in both instances, the UP government took administrative action to ensure release of the said properties from Khan’s custody and did not register any FIR.
The state has also not initiated any criminal proceeding against Khan for allegedly demolishing a historical gate at Rampur, which was more than a century old, and other heritage buildings, which were done without any legal process or orders, the SC was told.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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