Result Of Election In Suar Constituency Will Be Subject To Outcome Of Abdullah Azam Khan's Plea Against Conviction: SC
The Supreme Court today ordered that the results of the election (polling) to be held on May 10 in Suar constituency of Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district will be subject to the outcome of the Special Leave Petition preferred by SP leader Azam Khan's son Abdullah Azam Khan.
Khan has challenged the order of the Allahabad High Court refusing to stay his conviction in a 2008 criminal case, holding that the applicant was trying to seek relief on “absolutely non-existent grounds”.
A bench of Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice Bela M. Trivedi also directed the State of Uttar Pradesh to file a counter affidavit.
Senior Advocate Vivek Tankha appeared for the petitioner and Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj appeared for the respondents.
Earlier, on April 24, 2023, the bench had adjourned the matter to today when the senior counsel sought more time. During the hearing today, the bench asked whether the crime committed is such that it renders the petitioner unfit to be a public representative.
"Milords, he was 15 years old at the time of incidence", Tankha submitted before the Court at the outset.
"We are not here to decide criminality on the basis of age that whether minor or major...the question here is whether the request for stay of conviction was based on the ground", Justice Rastogi said.
"There is no concept of sentencing for conviction under the Juvenile Act", Tankha then contended.
"You say that you are a juvenile, our question is different, sentencing may not have any effect but conviction does, sentencing comes much after....", the bench stated.
Justice Justice Bela Trivedi then underlined, "he is involved in 46 cases...".
"Yes but they are all after the judgment", said Tankha in response. "I am a 15 year old sitting with my father in the car which is stopped, As a child I get down from the car. The father sits on the road. I sit with my father. But I am convicted for two years", Tankha further submitted.
The Bench then turned towards ASG and asked, "The kind of crime he has committed in his own capacity as a whole in totality, does it make him unfit to become a public representative? If you can prove that it makes him unfit to be a representative because morality is there, then you get it in your benefit".
ASG replied in the affirmative and cited Sanjay Dutt's case.
In response, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal cited Hardik Patel's case, where the Supreme Court had stayed his conviction (for conspiracy) for burning down an MLA's house.
The Allahabad High Court had earlier refused to stay the conviction of Mohammad Abdullah Azam Khan, son of Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, in a 2008 criminal case, saying that the applicant was trying to seek relief on “absolutely non-existent grounds.”
The Bench of Justice Rajiv Gupta had observed that “In fact, the applicant is trying to seek stay of his conviction on absolutely non-existent grounds. It is well-settled principle of law that stay of conviction is not a rule but an exception to be resorted to in rare cases.”
A criminal case under Sections 341 and 353 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) was registered in 2008 against Abdullah Azam Khan and his father Azam Khan for blocking traffic and threatening to set his car on fire, after their vehicle was stopped by the police checking in Moradabad.
The High Court had noted that as many as 46 criminal cases were pending against the applicant, and said that “It is now need of the hour to have purity in politics. Representatives of people should be man of clear antecedent.”
“In the backdrop of the said circumstances, refusal to stay the conviction would not, in any way, result in injustice to the applicant” the High Court had observed.
Cause Title- Mohammad Abdullah Azam Khan v. State of U.P.
