High court scraps election of Azam Khan’s son over age rule
PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad High Court on Monday set aside the election of Mohd Abdullah Azam Khan from the Suar assembly constituency on the ground that he was less than 25 years old at the time of election and hence was not qualified to be an MLA under Article 173(b) of the Constitution of India. Mohd Abdullah is the son of Rampur member of Parliament Azam Khan. He was elected as an MLA from the Suar constituency of Rampur in the 2017 state elections.
Justice SP Kesarwani allowed the petition filed by Nawab Kazim Ali Khan, who had challenged the election of Abdullah on the ground that Abdullah was less than 25 years old at the time of election and that he filed false documents as his proof of age.
According to the petitioner, Abdullah, as per his educational certificates, was born on January 1, 1993, while according to his birth certificate his date of birth was September 30, 1990.
The petitioner’s plea was that the birth certificate issued by the Lucknow Nagar Nigam was meant to help Abdullah participate in the 2017 elections. Furthe
the Aadhaar card and PAN cards were also not issued before 2015. All these were done so that Abdullah’s age could be shown above 25 years at the time of state elections.
Mohd Abdullah’s plea was that his age was more than 25 years at the time of filing of nomination papers and while scrutinising his educational certificate in 2015, he came to know that his date of birth was incorrectly mentioned in the Class 10 marksheet, after which he took steps to get his educational certificates corrected.
Justice SP Kesarwani, after hearing the concerned parties and evaluating the evidence on record, came to the conclusion that on the date of filing of nomination papers on January 25, 2017, and on the date of scrutiny of nomination papers as well as on
date of declaration of result of the Suar assembly constituency, Mohd Abdullah was less than 25 years of age and, thus, was not qualified to be elected for the Legislative Assembly at that time.
Abdullah’s mother and Rajya Sabha MP Tazeen Fatma had appeared as a witness in the case.
Reacting to the court verdict, Tazeen Fatima said she would challenge the verdict by placing all the records of her son’s birth before the court. “I was a teacher in a degree college. The maternity leave, which I took when Abdullah was born, is there in my service record,” she said. Tazeen, who quit her Rajya Sabha seat after she was elected MLA from Rampur (sadar) seat in the recent by-elections, said Abdullah was born in King George Medical College and she had the birth certificate of her son to counter any allegations. “What is more, a medical examination of Abdullah was conducted at the time of his nomination and his age was recorded as 26 years at that time,” she said.
“It’s a sad commentary on how a political party and its leaders who love to talk tall had stooped so low that the election of their lawmaker had to be set aside by the court,” BJP’S Rampur in-charge Chandramohan said.