Ghaziabad, November 1: A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Ghaziabad on Sunday remanded Samajwadi Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan to 14 days of judicial custody in a money-laundering case linked to Mohammad Ali Jauhar University. Khan will be lodged in Dasna District Jail in Ghaziabad, instead of Rampur Jail, from where he had been released on Saturday, news agency ANI reported.
Source: ANI via Dainik Jagran
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) produced Khan before Special Judge (Anti-Corruption, CBI) Avanish Kumar Pandey at around 10.30 a.m. amid tight security. A convoy of five ED vehicles brought him to the court, accompanied by more than 100 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Uttar Pradesh Police. The court passed the order after hearing the matter for about 90 minutes; ED counsel Kuldeep Srivastava argued for the agency, while Deputy Director Piyush Thorat and Assistant Director Praveen Kumar were present in court. The Free Press Journal also reported the 14-day judicial custody order.
Source: Free Press Journal
Asked by reporters whether he wanted to say anything as he arrived, Khan replied: "Ab kya reh gaya hai bolne ko" — what is left to say now. Supporters gathered outside the court premises and raised slogans in his favour, reports said.
Sunday's order is the next step in a sequence Awaaz Punjab has reported as it unfolded. On Thursday, the Allahabad High Court suspended the sentences of Khan and his son, former MLA Abdullah Azam Khan, in the dual PAN card case and granted them bail, though it refused to stay their conviction, so their disqualification from contesting elections remains in force. On Wednesday, the ED had attached the land and buildings of Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur — book value Rs 426.46 crore, with a reported market value of about Rs 1,170 crore — in the money-laundering probe. On Saturday, minutes after Khan walked out of Rampur district jail after nearly 11 months inside, an ED team from the Lucknow zonal office took him into custody at the jail gate; Abdullah, who was released with him, was allowed to go home.
The ED case, registered under the PMLA, stems from dozens of Uttar Pradesh Police FIRs against Khan and his alleged associates — 58 FIRs, according to reports — over alleged land-grabbing and financial irregularities linked to the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust, which runs the university Khan founded in Rampur. The agency alleges that government funds were diverted towards building the private university. These are allegations in an ongoing investigation; Khan has not been convicted in this case.
Khan has alleged he is being punished for being a Muslim and for building a university — an allegation his party has backed: Samajwadi Party national general secretary Shivpal Singh Yadav has accused the government of weaponising central agencies and claimed the ED acted to re-arrest Khan as soon as he secured bail. The BJP has defended the action, saying the law is equal for all and the ED's case is evidence-based and free of political vendetta. With the court choosing judicial custody over the custodial interrogation the ED had said it would seek, Khan now stays in Dasna jail for the next 14 days while the money-laundering investigation continues.