Supreme Court refuses to quash FIR against Samajwadi Party leader Abdullah Azam Khan in forgery case

“Have faith in the trial court. Let it be decided in the trial court. Why should we interfere now when the trial is already over?” Justice Sundresh orally remarked.

According to the FIR lodged in July 2019 at the Civil Lines police station in the Rampur district, the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader allegedly used forged and fake documents to obtain his passport and was using it. While his date of birth is listed as January 1, 1993, in educational records, including a high school certificate, the passport indicates it as September 30, 1990.

Abdullah Azam Khan, the son of SP leader Azam Khan, had earlier approached the high court seeking to quash the case, stating that he had already been convicted in another case for using fake documents to obtain his date of birth certificate, which was subsequently used to obtain his passport. Therefore, it amounted to double jeopardy, prosecution for the same offence twice, he argued.

The high court in its July 23 order, however, rejected the argument and held that the two offences “prima facie appear to be different and distinctive offences”. It also ruled that the facts of the two cases were also different.

The high court said that “after obtaining a document based on forged document, a person uses the same at different stages then he commits different offences and it cannot be said that all the offences which he committed subsequently are either same offences or based on same facts”, and he, therefore, “can be prosecuted separately for such offences”.

On October 7, 2025, the Supreme Court dismissed another plea by the father-son duo seeking the quashing of a case for allegedly using a forged birth certificate to obtain a PAN card to file a nomination for the Assembly elections.