Azam Khan's plea seeking stay on conviction dismissed by court

A Rampur court has dismissed SP leader Azam Khan's plea seeking a stay on his conviction for delivering "hate speech", thus paving the way for the Election Commission to formally issue the notification for a bypoll in the Rampur assembly seat. The Supreme Court had called for the bypoll notification to be deferred until Friday to give time to Khan for the disposal of his plea for stay.

An MP-MLA court had on October 27 sentenced Khan to three years of imprisonment for making "provocative" statements amounting to "hate speech" against the prime minister, chief minister and the then district magistrate of Rampur, during the campaigning for the 2019 general elections.

Since a 2013 SC verdict calls for "immediate disqualification" for six years of any lawmaker convicted for two or more years, the UP assembly secretariat had notified his seat as vacant the next day. Last Saturday, the EC announced a bypoll to the seat to take place on December 5, along with the bypolls to four other assembly seats and the Mainpuri LS seat.


Khan had then moved the SC challenging the byelection.