Senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan was on Thursday sentenced to three-year imprisonment by an MP/MLA Court in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district in a hate speech case.
The court also slapped a fine of Rs 6,000 on the SP leader, who was present in the court when the verdict was pronounced.
Khan was however granted bail by the court which also granted him time to file an appeal against the ruling in a higher court.
According to the prosecution lawyer Ajay Tewari, the SP leader could lose his membership in the UP assembly after the sentence. ''A member of the assembly loses his membership in case of a conviction of more than two years,'' Tewari said in Rampur.
Khan had been charged with delivering an objectionable speech during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while campaigning. The prosecution had contended that he had tried to incite communal hatred and also threatened the then-district magistrate.
Khan was then a joint candidate of the SP-BSP alliance from Rampur LS seat. He had won the poll but had later resigned his seat after winning the assembly poll from Rampur.
Khan was already facing dozens of cases, including those of land grabbing, theft, and misusing authority during the SP regime.
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