Sitapur (Uttar Pradesh): Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and former Lok Sabha MP Azam Khan was released from Sitapur jail after spending nearly 23 months behind bars. He had been imprisoned in connection with the Quality Bar land encroachment case.
SP MLA Shivpal Singh Yadav, who came to receive Khan, criticized the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, alleging that his colleague had been “framed” in false cases.
Addressing reporters, Yadav welcomed the court’s decision to grant bail to Azam Khan. “Azam Khan was framed by the government in false cases. However, the court has granted him bail, providing him relief in these matters. I welcome this decision and commend both the Supreme Court and the High Court. Many false cases were filed against him, but the Samajwadi Party stands firmly beside him,” said Yadav, a six-time MLA from the Jaswantnagar constituency.
When asked about rumors of Khan joining the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Yadav dismissed them, saying, “These are all lies. The Samajwadi Party is fully with him.”
Khan recently secured bail from the Allahabad High Court in the land encroachment case. Earlier, the High Court had granted him bail in the Quality Bar land case. Speaking to ANI, Khan’s lawyer, Mohammad Khalid, stated that with this bail, no pending cases remain to keep him in jail, suggesting his release was imminent.
“There are no pending cases that would keep him in jail. Bail has been granted in all matters, and the release process may take two to three days,” Khalid explained.
Regarding the Quality Bar land case, Khalid said, “The allegation was that in 2013, when Azam Khan was a Cabinet Minister, he misused his power to allot land to a family member. The property belonged to a society that owned a building called Quality Bar. The society had issued a tender, and the highest bidder—his wife—was allotted the land. An FIR was filed in 2019, followed by further investigation in 2024, naming Khan as an accused. We presented all the facts in court, and bail was granted.”
On May 16, Khan’s advocate Nasir Sultan stated that Additional Session Judge Vivek Kumar of the MP-MLA court acquitted Azam Khan and seven others due to lack of evidence. “Nearly a dozen FIRs were lodged against Azam and others related to the 2016 Dungarpur incident, where houses were demolished for the Asara scheme during the SP government. One case, filed in 2019 by Shafeeq Bano, claimed she had built a house on land purchased in 2012,” Sultan added.
