Supreme Court grants Azam Khan regular bail, sets aside High Court’s conditions

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed 73-year-old Samajwadi Party leader Mohammed Azam Khan regular bail in a land grabbing case while criticising a tendency in High Courts to make “completely unrelated” remarks against accused persons and imposing “extreme conditions” on them for bail.

A Bench of Justice A.M. Khanwilkar noted how Mr. Khan’s case was an example of the “new trend” seen in the High Courts.

The High Court had variously described Mr. Khan a “political heavyweight” of Uttar Pradesh, “political boss”, “virtual political giant” while granting him interim bail considering his age and medical condition in an order on May 10.

It had then imposed several conditions for converting his interim bail to a regular one, including that he “fully cooperates” with the measuring, walling and barb-wiring of a 13.842-hectare evacuee property which is the focal point of the land-grabbing case. The property is attached to the premises of the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University, the Uttar Pradesh politician’s “dream project” in his constituency. He is a member of the board of trustees of the varsity.

The High Court had further ordered that his chances for a regular bail would depend on the Rampur District Magistrate giving the “final nod” to the completion of the exercise of measuring, securing and taking of actual possession of the disputed land by the local authorities on behalf of Administrator of Evacuee Property by June 30, 2022 without meeting with any “hindrance or obstacles” from either Mr. Khan or the varsity.

The High Court had gone to the extent of requesting the Custodian, Evacuee Property, to hand over the property to “some paramilitary forces for their training purposes”.

‘Extreme conditions’
Mr. Khan, represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocate Nizam Pasha, had challenged the “unrelated” observations made by the High Court while considering a plea for bail. He had argued that the conditions imposed on Mr. Khan for regular bail was “extreme”. A Vacation Bench of the Supreme Court had stayed all these conditions in an order passed in late May. However, Mr. Sibal alleged the disputed property had continued to remain sealed.

“This is yet another case where we find that the High Court has referred to matters which are completely unrelated to the prayer for bail,” the apex court noted on Friday.

Instead of confining itself to bail conditions to ensure Mr. Khan’s presence during the investigation and trial, the Bench said the High Court order had “ventured into issues unrelated to the prayer for bail”. It had imposed conditions which were “much beyond” what was required.

The apex court did not hesitate to set aside these bail conditions and parts of the High Court order with the “objectionable observations”. It ordered the remarks to be effaced from the records.

The court was not impressed by a request from Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, for Uttar Pradesh, to stop Mr. Khan from entering Rampur as a condition for his bail.

Noting that the observations made in the May 10 order had led the local authorities to seal the property, the court ordered the Joint Magistrate/District Magistrate to “take immediate steps for unsealing the property”.

The Bench said its order, however, does not preclude the competent authorities from taking action independently on the basis of tangible material, information, documents and evidence.

“The proceedings are to proceed independently, uninfluenced by the observations in the bail judgment [of May 10],” the court ordered.

Mr. Khan is accused of cheating, forging documents, criminally trespassing and “encircling” the 13-odd hectares, an agricultural land which belonged to a person who migrated to Pakistan during the Partition and was later vested with the government under the Enemy Property Act of 1968, into the university grounds.

A total of 90 cases are pending against Mr. Khan. He has been granted bail in all of them.