SC suspends conviction of former BSP MP Ansari

New Delhi, December 14

The Supreme Court today suspended the conviction of former BSP MP Afzal Ansari in a 2007 Gangsters Act case and allowed him to attend the proceedings of the Lok Sabha on the condition that he would neither cast his vote in the House nor draw any perks.

Sisodia’s review petitions rejected

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By a majority of 2:1, a Bench of Justice Surya Kant, Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan asked the Allahabad HC to dispose of the criminal appeal of Ansari, a former MP from Ghazipur in UP, against his conviction and sentence by June 30, 2024.

While Justice Kant and Justice Bhuyan delivered the majority verdict, Justice Datta dismissed Ansari’s appeal.

Afzal Ansari was disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP on May 1 after being convicted and sentenced in the case.

Ansari had challenged the Allahabad High Court’s July 24 order refusing to suspend his conviction even as it granted bail to him.

A special MP/MLA court in Ghazipur had sentenced him to four-year imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh. On April 29, it convicted Ansari and his brother Mukhtar Ansari in the 2007 Gangsters Act case.

While sentencing Afzal Ansari to four years in jail, it awarded 10-year imprisonment to Mukhtar Ansari.

They were booked under the UP Gangsters Act in connection with the murder of the then BJP MLA from Ghazipur Krishnanad Rai on November 29, 2005, and the kidnapping and murder of Varanasi-based trader Nand Kishore Rungta in 1997.