The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Election Commission to defer issuing notification for by-election to the Rampur Assembly seat — which had fallen vacant following the conviction of sitting MLA Mohammad Azam Khan of the Samajwadi Party in a hate speech case — till November 11 to enable him [Khan] approach the appellate court for a stay on the conviction. A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, and Justices Hima Kohli and J B Pardiwala ordered that the Rampur Additional Sessions Judge before whom the appeal has been filed “shall prepone the hearing of the application for stay of conviction and take it up peremptorily on 10 November 2022” and “disposed of.on the same day”. The “Gazette notification for declaring the election schedule for the 37-Rampur Assembly constituency may be issued on or after 11 November 2022, depending upon the outcome of the application for stay of conviction,” the court said. Appearing for Khan, Senior Advocate P Chidambaram said that on October 28, 2022, the day after Khan’s conviction, the Secretariat of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly issued a Gazette notification, declaring the constituency vacant. Calling this “unprecedented”, Chidambaram said no such action was taken in the case of BJP’s Khatauli MLA who was convicted on October 11. He submitted that on November 5, 2022, the EC issued a press release, declaring the schedule for by-elections in five Assembly constituencies, including Rampur, across various states. The Gazette notification for this is due to be issued on November 10, 2022, Chidambaram added.
