The Prosecution Department of the Uttar Pradesh government will soon file an appeal in the Allahabad High Court against a Rampur court’s judgment acquitting senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan in a 2019 hate speech case. It also said that there was “no pressure” on election official Anil Kumar Chauhan on whose complaint, the hate speech FIR was lodged against the SP leader. Last Wednesday, Rampur Additional District and Sessions Judge (MP/MLA court) Amit Veer Singh set aside the conviction of Azam Khan in the hate speech case that had led to his disqualification from the membership of the UP Assembly last year. Calling the court’s judgment “one-sided”, Rampur Joint Director (in charge), Prosecution, SP Pandey said, “We will appeal against the order acquitting him (Azam Khan) in the Allahabad High Court. We will first send it to the Law Department in Lucknow, and from there, it will be sent to the Allahabad High Court.” “The judgment is one-sided. While one side’s issues have been written in the judgment, the other side’s contentions have been ignored. A complete analysis of the evidence has not been done. Fragments of evidence have been analysed. Some piece of evidence has been picked up, while others have been omitted. The judgment is unjustified,” Pandey told The Sunday Express. Setting aside the conviction order passed by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate-1 Nishant Mann in October last year, Additional District and Sessions Amit Veer Singh in his judgment said the lower court reached a conclusion without understanding the essence of Khan’s speech or examining the evidence, and without giving reasons – which was “illegal”. The judgment also took note of the statement of prosecution witness and complainant Anil Kumar Chauhan in which he told the court that he lodged the complaint against Khan “under pressure” from then Rampur District Magistrate Aunjaneya Kumar Singh, who was the Returning Officer. “This proves that there were some issues between Azam Khan and the then District Magistrate,” the court said in its order. Stating that the prosecution had “accepted” that complaints of bias were made against Aunjaneya Kumar Singh, the court mentioned the testimony of another prosecution witness, Chandrapal, who was then posted as Assistant Development Officer (Panchayat), Shahbad. In his testimony, Chandrapal confirmed that Azam, his wife Tanzeen Fatima, son Abdullah Azam Khan and Samajwadi Party workers had lodged several complaints with the Election Commission against Singh, the court order said. The conviction and three years’ jail term led to Azam Khan being disqualified as Rampur Sadar MLA. In the subsequent bypoll, BJP won the seat. Since the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, as many as 81 cases have been registered against Azam Khan in Rampur on various charges, including land-grabbing, cheating, and criminal trespass. Khan’s wife and son were also booked along with him in some of these cases. All three are currently out on bail.
