Years of Alleged Wrongdoings Catch Up With Azam Khan as Rampur Court Hands Him and Son Seven-Year Jail Term
Hardly two months after senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan stepped out of jail on bail, the weight of long-standing allegations finally bore down on him again.
A Rampur court on Monday sentenced Khan and his son, former MLA Abdullah Azam, to seven years in prison in a forgery case linked to the use of two PAN cards — a ruling that underscored how the controversies surrounding the veteran leader have continued to tighten around him.
The court ordered their immediate arrest after holding the father-son duo guilty. Abdullah, who had been out on bail in the case, was taken into custody shortly after the verdict.
“Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Shobit Bansal has convicted Azam Khan and his son to seven years’ imprisonment and imposed a fine.
They have been taken into custody,” said Joint Director of Prosecution (Rampur) Rohtash Kumar Pandey.
The convictions were made under multiple IPC sections — 467, 468, 420, 471, and 120-B — all tied to forgery, cheating, and criminal conspiracy. The court examined nine prosecution witnesses and 18 defence witnesses before delivering the judgment.
Azam’s counsel, El Nasir Sultan, said they would challenge the order in a higher court.
The case originated from an FIR lodged on December 6, 2019, by Akash Saxena — now a BJP MLA — who accused Abdullah of manipulating his age and using two different PAN cards to gain undue benefits.
One PAN card, matching Abdullah’s school records, showed his date of birth as January 1, 1993, and was used for routine financial operations, including opening a bank account and filing tax returns.
But trouble began when Abdullah contested the 2017 Assembly elections from Suar.
According to the prosecution, he allegedly altered his bank passbook and used a different PAN card — one showing his date of birth as September 30, 1990 — to project himself as eligible for candidature.
The forged documents were said to have been submitted along with his nomination papers, with investigators alleging that the older PAN card was deployed strategically to bypass age-related restrictions.
The prosecution further contended that the bank account mentioned during the nomination process was neither linked to nor operated through the second PAN card at the time, strengthening the forgery claim.
BJP MLA Saxena maintained that the case fundamentally revolved around exploiting two PAN cards for personal gain.
For Azam Khan, this conviction is the latest blow in a long series of legal battles that have shadowed his political journey.
Released from Sitapur jail on September 23 after nearly two years, the 10-time MLA and former Uttar Pradesh Cabinet minister has been fighting dozens of cases that began piling up soon after the BJP assumed power in the state in 2017.
What started with a hate-speech case in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections soon escalated. Records show that over 81 cases have been filed against him since 2017 — 70 of them in 2019 alone — ranging from land grabbing and cheating to vandalism, trespassing, intimidation, and hate speech.
With Monday’s conviction, Azam Khan now stands convicted in seven cases — six in Rampur and one in Moradabad.
While he has appealed each of these verdicts and secured bail in most, the cumulative impact of the charges and convictions appears to be catching up with him.
He has also been acquitted in six cases, though the state government has contested several of those acquittals in higher courts, leaving many legal battles still unresolved.
As the courtroom decisions continue to stack against him, the years of alleged improprieties seem to be surfacing in ways that now pose a serious threat to his political legacy and future.
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