Fake Birth Certificate Case | Allahabad HC Stays SP Leader Azam Khan's Conviction, Suspends Sentence Of Son, Wife; Grants Them Bail

However, the court did not suspend the conviction of his wife (Tanzeen Fatima) and son (Abdullah Azam), though their pleas for suspension of the sentence were allowed, and all three were granted bail.

However, Azam Khan and his son will remain in jail due to a pending case against them and only his wife will be released from jail.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Singh granted relief to Azam Khan, noting that his case was distinguishable from the cases of his wife and son.

Therefore, the judgement and order of conviction qua Mohammad Azam Khan shall remain stayed/suspended during the pendency of his criminal revision, but the prayer for a stay of judgment and order of conviction qua Dr Tanzeen Fatima and Mohammad Abdullah Azam Khan are rejected, the Court said.

This case, with its intricate details, dates back to the 2017 UP Assembly elections. At that time, Azam Khan's son (Abdullah Azam) had contested and emerged victorious from the Swar assembly seat of Rampur on the Samajwadi party ticket.

However, the situation took a turn when Akash Saxena (now a sitting BJP MLA, Rampur) lodged a case against Azam Khan, his wife, and son. The allegation was that they had conspired to obtain two birth certificates for Abdullah Azam Khan.

It was Saxena's case that Abdullah Azam did not meet the age criteria (25 years) to contest the 2017 UP Assembly elections. It was claimed that his date of birth on the educational certificate was 1 January 1993, whereas, on his birth certificate, his date of birth was stated as 30 September 1990.

Allegations were made to the effect that the birth certificate issued to Abdullah by Lucknow Nagar Nigam was meant to help Abdullah participate in the 2017 elections.

It was also alleged that the first certificate showed him to have been born in Rampur, while the other certificate stated that he was born in Lucknow.

Azam Khan, his wife and his Son were found guilty by a Court in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district in this case in October last year, and they were sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.

An MP/MLA Court presided over by Magistrate Shobit Bansal convicted them under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged [document or electronic record]) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

After this case reached the High Court, a hearing started, and Abdullah's birth certificate was found to be fake. After this, his election from the Swar seat was also annulled.

Proceedings before the High Court

Challenging their conviction, the trio moved to the High Court with their criminal revision petition.

The revisionists argued that Lucknow Nagar Nigam's second birth certificate (issued in 2015) may be illegal or wrong for civil consequences, but it cannot be said or treated as a forged document because it has been officially and validly issued following due procedure of law under the genuine seal and signature of an officer competent to issue it.

It was strongly argued that the revisionists are neither authors of the birth certificates nor is there a charge that they interpolated or fabricated either of the birth certificates.

On the other hand, it was argued by the counsels for the state and the complainant that right from childhood to January 2015, in all the concerned documents, the date of birth of Mohammad Abdullah Azam Khan was recorded as January 01, 1993, and the place of birth was Rampur.

It was further submitted that in the year 2017, Mohammad Abdullah Azam Khan was not completing the age of 25, which was the minimum eligibility criteria for contesting the legislative assembly election. Therefore, the accused revisionists, in a pre-planned manner, got a second birth certificate issued from Municipal Corporation, Lucknow, in 2015. The date of birth of Mohammad Abdullah Azam Khan is shown as September 1990. His place of Birth is shown as Lucknow.

Against this backdrop, it was strongly argued that the impugned birth certificate 2015 is a forged document because it was obtained by concealing that Nagar Palika Parishad, Rampur issued a birth certificate (of June 2012).

Against the backdrop of these submissions, the Court noted that in response to the query about who was cheated by Mohammad Azam Khan and the evidence of deception, the counsel for the State and the complainant could not provide any material evidence against him. They only argued that a presumption of guilt should be drawn since Khan was aware of the birth certificate dated 21.01.2015.

Given this, stressing that conjectures and suspicions should not be allowed to take the place of legal proof because of Section 3 of the Evidence Act, the Court observed thus:

“There is no evidence on record to establish that any of the revisionists have forged the birth certificate dated 21.1.2015… It is a case of the prosecution that birth certificate dated 21.1.2015 is a forged and false document, but the person, who made, signed, sealed and executed, has not been prosecuted, neither his statement under section 161 Cr.P.C was recorded nor he was produced before the trial court…”

The Court also opined that the complainant (Akash Saxena) was not deceived by the revisionists; therefore, given Section 39 CrPC, he had no locus to lodge an FIR as the offence under Section 120-B, 420, 467, 471 IPC, for which the revisionists have been tried and convicted.

The Court further stated that the ingredients/evidence of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of any property were also lacking in this case; hence, Section 420 IPC was also not made out.

Against this backdrop, considering the facts and circumstances of the case in totality, the nature of allegations, the role attributed to the revisionists, material evidence on the record, submissions advanced on behalf of the parties concerned, and reasons as noted above, the Court allowed the application for suspension of their sentence during the pendency of their Criminal Revisions.