PAN Card Forgery Case | UP Court Convicts SP Leader Azam Khan, Son Abdullah; Awards 7-Year Jail Term Each

A Special MP/MLA Court in Rampur today convicted Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan and his son, also a former MLA, Abdullah Azam, in a forgery case related to the use of two different PAN cards obtained using different dates of birth. Both have been awarded seven years of imprisonment. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Shobit Bansal found them guilty under Sections 467, 468, 420, 471 and 120-B of the IPC for the offences of forgery, cheating, using forged documents and criminal conspiracy. For context, the case pertains to the FIR lodged in 2019 by BJP leader Akash Saxena, now an MLA, alleging that Abdullah had used two PAN cards containing different dates of birth and gained undue benefits through their use. According to the prosecution, Abdullah initially obtained a PAN card from the Income Tax Department showing 1 January 1993 as his date of birth. This matched the date recorded in his school and High School certificates. That PAN was also used to operate a bank account and file income tax returns. However, it was further alleged that for the purposes of contesting the 2017 Assembly elections, Abdullah altered his bank passbook and also changed the PAN details and filed the forged copy of the passbook while submitting his nomination papers. The second PAN recorded his date of birth as 30 September 1990. This alleged fabrication was made so that he could be eligible to contest the polls (minimum age requirement of 25 years). The prosecution argued that Abdullah had done so in conspiracy with his father Azam Khan. It was also claimed that the bank account mentioned in the nomination papers was neither linked to nor operated through the second PAN.Around 10 days back, a Magistrate Court in Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow district acquitted senior Samajwadi Party leader and former MP Azam Khan in a case related to the alleged misuse of a government letterhead and stamp to malign the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).In September this year, Azam Khan came out of jail after 23 months.

PAN Card Forgery Case | UP Court Convicts SP Leader Azam Khan, Son Abdullah; Awards 7-Year Jail Term Each

Sparsh Upadhyay

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