SP MP Azam Khan, Wife And Son Declared Absconders After Failing To Appear In Court In Alleged Documents Forgery Case

The Uttar Pradesh Police has pasted notices on the house of senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and Rampur MP Azam Khan, declaring him, his wife and son as absconders.

The notices were pasted on Thursday (9 January).

The court had recently declared Azam Khan, his wife Tanzeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam as absconders in three cases. In case they fail to appear before the court by 24 January, their properties will be attached.

The district administration also made a public announcement about the Khan family being declared absconders.

The exercise, known as "munadi" in the official parlance, is part of Section 82 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and is used when a warrant against an accused cannot be executed.

Additional district government counsel Ram Avtar Saini said that the court had directed the police to comply with the proclamation notice against Azam Khan and others in the matter.

Earlier, the court had issued non-bailable warrants against the Khans after they had failed to present themselves before it.

Additional district and sessions judge Dhirendra Kamboj had proclaimed them 'absconder' invoking Section 82 of CrPC.

Rampur's Circle Officer Satyajit Gupta said, "Azam Khan and his family members against whom the non-bailable warrants were issued by the court, failed to appear before it. Therefore in compliance of Section 82 of CrPc, apart from the munadi, the proclamation notice was put up on the wall of his house as well."

The case against the Khans related to the alleged forged birth certificate of Abdullah Azam, whose election from the Suar Assembly constituency was recently annulled by the Allahabad high court.

In two other cases, they have been asked to appear on 20 January.

On 3 January 2019, BJP leader Akash Saxena had lodged a complaint alleging that Azam Khan and his wife helped their son in obtaining two fake birth certificates -- one from Lucknow and another from Rampur.

Following the complaint, the Ganj kotwali police registered an FIR against the three under sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Later, the high court annulled the election of Abdullah as Suar MLA on the ground that he was underage and not qualified to fight the 2017 elections.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)