SC to hear MLA Azam Khan’s plea challenging bail condition during this week

PTI, May 24, 2022, 4:15 PM IST

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday said that a plea filed by Samajwadi Party MLA Azam Khan challenging a bail condition imposed by the Allahabad High Court, which he claimed is for demolishing a part of his Jauhar University allegedly built by grabbing of enemy property, would be heard during this week.

The matter was mentioned before a vacation bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Bela M Trivedi.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Khan, said one of his colleagues had mentioned the matter before the apex court and the bench had asked him to mention it before the registrar.

“Your lordships said to mention it before the registrar. It was mentioned, but it is not being listed,” Sibal said.

“We will list in the course of this week,” the bench said.

Advocate Nizam Pasha, representing the petitioner, had on Monday mentioned the matter for urgent listing before the top court and said the high court has ordered “demolition” of the university as a condition for interim bail, and now the district administration seeks to execute the order.

The bench had asked him to mention the matter before the mentioning registrar.

On May 10, the high court while granting interim bail had directed the Rampur district magistrate to take possession of the enemy property attached to the campus of Jauhar University by June 30, 2022, and raise a boundary wall with barbed wire around it.

It had said that on completion of the mentioned exercise of taking the possession of the land to the satisfaction of the DM, Rampur, the interim bail of Azam Khan shall be converted into regular bail.

While mentioning the matter on Monday, Pasha had told the apex court that the status of the land, on which the university is built, is the subject matter of a writ petition in the high court between the Waqf Board and the custodian of the land in which a stay has been ordered.

He had said that despite this, the single judge of the high court has put handover of land to the custodian as a condition of bail.

He had pointed out that now, the district administration has identified that land as a parcel of land underlying between two buildings of the university and has issued notice to vacate the buildings so that they can be demolished in order to comply with the bail order.

On May 19, the top court while exercising its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution had granted Khan (73) interim bail in an alleged cheating case paving way for his release from prison.

On May 10, the Allahabad High Court had granted him interim bail in a case related to the alleged grabbing of enemy property for his Jauhar University project on the condition that he has to return the entire enemy property to paramilitary forces and has to furnish a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and two sureties of like amount.

Khan, who is a Member of the Legislative Assembly from Rampur Sadar constituency, was lodged in the Sitapur jail of the State for more than two years.

An FIR was lodged at Azem Nagar police station in Rampur against Khan and others in 2019 for alleged grabbing of enemy property and misappropriation of public money of more than hundreds of crores of rupees.

It was alleged in the FIR that during partition one Imamuddin Qureshi went to Pakistan and his land was recorded as enemy property, but Khan in collusion with others grabbed the 13.842-hectare plot.

On May 6, the top court had said it is a “travesty of justice” that the high court has not delivered its verdict on the bail plea despite reserving the order last December in the grabbing of enemy property case.

The top court had noted that Khan has been granted bail in 86 out of 87 cases lodged against him and observed that it is keeping the plea of Khan pending till the high court delivered its order on his bail.

The high court on December 4, 2021, had reserved its decision. However, the state government later submitted an application and sought permission to present some new facts through fresh affidavits, which were filed on May 5.

The high court had then on May 10 delivered its verdict in the case.