Beleaguered Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Saturday sharply reacted to a Rampur court’s judgment handing out seven-year jail sentences to him, his wife Tazeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam Khan in the fake birth certificate case, saying there is a difference between verdict and justice.

“There is a difference between verdict and justice. This is just a decision,” he told the media after being taken into custody.

The trio has been convicted under sections 420 (fraud), 467 (forging documents), 468 (using forged documents for cheating), 471 (using forged documents as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. They were on bail in the case.

The court of magistrate Shobit Bansal awarded the maximum sentence in the 2019 case.

In an FIR lodged by BJP MLA Akash Saxena at the Ganj police station in 2019, Khan and his family were accused of obtaining two fake birth certificates from Lucknow and Rampur.

Per the charge sheet, on the document procured from Rampur, Abdullah Azam’s date of birth is January 1, 1993. On the Lucknow document, his date of birth is September 30, 1990.

The second birth certificate issued by the Lucknow Municipal Corporation was used by Abdullah Azam to contest assembly elections from the Suar assembly constituency in 2017, when he hadn’t reached the required age of 25.

Abdullah Azam had won the 2022 assembly elections from the Suar constituency. However, following his conviction in a 2008 case of wrongful restraint and assault on a public servant, he was disqualified from the UP Assembly.

Khan later moved the Supreme Court challenging an Allahabad High Court order that refused to stay his conviction in the 2008 case.

“This is the triumph of justice. I will continue this fight for truth and justice in future as well,” said BJP lawmaker Akash Saxena.

With inputs from ANI