Indian HC stays arrest of SP's Azam Khan, his wife and son

 Azam Khan

Allahabad, Mar 27 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court Wednesday stayed the arrest of senior SP leader Azam Khan, his wife and son in a case of alleged forgery and cheating to secure two "fake" birth date certificates for their son.

A bench of justices Manoj Mishra and Vivek Verma suspended the arrest of Khan, his wife Nazneem Fatima, a Rajya Sabha member and son Abdullah Azam Khan, an Uttar Pradesh MLA on their petition seeking quashing of the FIR against them.

The bench halted their arrest till submission of the probe report by the police.

The case against Khan and his family members had been lodged at Ganj police station in Rampur district on January 3 on a complaint by a BJP leader, Akash Saxena.

Saxena had alleged that Khan and his wife had helped their son secure two fake birth date certificates - one from Lucknow and another from Rampur through cheating and forgery.

Appearing on behalf of the Khans, their counsel argued before the bench that the FIR was lodged out of "political vendetta with ulterior motives".

He also contended that as no pecuniary loss or gain was made to anybody, no case of cheating is made out against his clients.

Questioning Saxena's locus standi in filing the complaint against Khans, his counsel also argued that the complaint, if any, could have been lodged only by the officer, who had registered their date of births.