Lucknow: Azam Khan will walk out of jail. The sentence he was jailed under will not be set aside.
The Allahabad High Court on Thursday granted bail to the Samajwadi Party leader in a case involving two PAN cards, while declining to stay the sentence handed to him by a Rampur trial court. Justice Samit Gopal, hearing a revision petition against the Rampur judgment, granted bail but refused the further relief.
The trial court in Rampur had sentenced Khan to 10 years in prison in the matter. Because the High Court has not suspended the sentence, the conviction stands unless it is overturned in appeal, and Thursday's order addresses only his liberty pending that appeal.
Khan, a former minister in the Samajwadi Party governments in Uttar Pradesh and a multiple-term MLA from Rampur, has faced a series of cases in recent years. The dual PAN card matter is one of them.
Thursday's order came on a day when Uttar Pradesh courts and the state's politics were in the news on several fronts, and it lands in the middle of a charged political calendar in the state.
Details of the bail conditions, including any surety amount or the date by which Khan must appear before the trial court, were not immediately available in the order as reported.
The distinction the High Court drew — bail yes, suspension of sentence no — matters. Bail decides where a convict spends the period of an appeal. Suspension of sentence decides whether the conviction itself stops operating in the meantime, which in turn affects disqualification and the record. Khan's legal team is expected to press for the latter in the coming weeks.
For the Samajwadi Party, the order brings its most prominent Muslim face from the Rohilkhand region out of custody at a time when the party is rebuilding organisational strength in western Uttar Pradesh. For the state government, the case continues to run its course through appeal.
Rampur has been the centre of a long political and legal battle involving Khan, his family and municipal and property disputes, of which the PAN card case is a part.