Azam was disqualified, but why not BJP MLA Saini, RLD chief asks Assembly Speaker

On October 11, a court in Muzaffarnagar sentenced BJP MLA from Khatauli and 10 others to two years of imprisonment in a case related to the 2013 riots.

BJP MLA Saini claimed that his case was “not fit for disqualification” as he has been sentenced to two years of imprisonment. (File Photo)

Days after Uttar Pradesh Assembly Secretariat declared Rampur Sadar seat “vacant” following the conviction of its MLA, Azam Khan, in a hate speech case in which the senior Samajwadi Party leader was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Jayant Chaudhary shot a letter to Assembly Speaker Satish Mahana asking why the seat of BJP MLA Vikram Saini, who was convicted in a Muzaffarnagar riots case, has not yet been declared vacant.

On October 11, a court in Muzaffarnagar sentenced BJP MLA from Khatauli and 10 others to two years of imprisonment in a case related to the 2013 riots.

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Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan was convicted in a three-year-old hate speech case and sentenced to three years of imprisonment on October 28. He lost his Assembly membership the next day after Principal Secretary (Vidhan Sabha) issued a letter declaring his Rampur Sadar seat “vacant”.

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“In the hate speech case of senior SP leader Azam Khan, your office took swift action and cancelled his membership with immediate effect. You should be applauded for the implementation of the Representation of the People Act. But you have been inactive in a similar case in the past. This raises a question on your intention… if it is possible to interpret the law differently for MLAs of ruling and Opposition parties, Jayant wrote to the Speaker on October 29.

“…I would like to draw your attention to the case of the BJP MLA from Khatauli, Vikram Saini, who was convicted on October 11 in a Muzaffarnagar riots case of 2013 by an MP/MLA court for a jail term of two years under the Representation of the People Act. You didn’t take action in that case,” Jayant added. RLD is an alliance partner of the Samajwadi Party.

Also Read | BJP conspiring to sideline Azam Khan, lodging false cases against him: Samajwadi Party

Speaking to The Indian Express on Tuesday, Speaker Mahana, however, said that he has “no authority to disqualify anyone”.

“The Supreme Court has ordered that if someone is convicted for two years or more, then automatically the person is terminated from the membership. I didn’t terminate or end the membership of Azam Khan too. The provision is that when Vidhan Sabha secretariat gets any such information from an authentic source, then they will announce the seat as vacant,” Mahana said.

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“In Azam Khan’s case, we got the information from the UP Chief Election Officer. We received information that such an order was passed by the district court and action must be taken on the directives of the Supreme Court. Then, we announced his seat vacant. We are not the authority to terminate anyone’s membership.”

BJP MLA Saini claimed that his case was “not fit for disqualification” as he has been sentenced to two years of imprisonment.

Section 8 (3) of The Representation of the People Act, 1951 states: “A person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years… shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction…”

Asad Rehman

Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express. During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state. During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute. Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor. Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor's degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. ... Read More

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