Rampur DM files 10 cases against Azam in Revenue Board

BAREILLY: A total of 10 cases were lodged in Revenue Board against senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan by the office of district magistrate of Rampur on Wednesday.

Khan has been accused of procuring 104 acre land belonging to the people from Scheduled Caste “against rules.”

The cases were registered by the DM following a complaint by one Akash Saxena, a Rampurbased businessman and son of a local BJP leader.

Saxena is also district head of Laghu Udyog Bharti, which is an offshoot of RSS working for Micro and Small Industries.

Confirming the development, DM Rampur Mahendra Bahadur Singh said,” The cases are related to the procurement of land from 10 families of the Scheduled Caste. It was found in our preliminary investigation that no permission to procure the land was taken from the then district magistrate, which is a clear violation of rules.”

The procurement of the said land was allegedly not done directly. The land was first brought from the SC families by a person close to Khan and was later transferred to Mohammed Ali Jauhar Trust run by Azam Khan to build Mohammad Ali Jauhar University.

“The land use of any SC property cannot be changed without the permission from the DM office. But it was done to procure land for the Jauhar University,” said Akash Saxena, the complainant in the matter.

“The procurement was done in 2007 and its land use was changed fraudulently in 2013 when Khan was a minister in the Samajwadi Party government,” he added.

According to the official website of Jauhar Ali University, the university has a campus of 350 acre. At least 104 acre of this land was purchased against the law, claimed Saxena.

Meanwhile, Khan denied any “illegal procurement” of land for Jauhar University.

“All land procurement for the university was done by the books. It appears that these cases were registered against the university under political pressure to hinder the education of students who study here,” Khan told HT over phone.