The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a stay on an order by the Allahabad High Court convicting former Bahujan Samaj Party legislator Mukhtar Ansari and sentencing him to seven years imprisonment in a 2003 case of abusing and pointing a pistol at a jailer and threatening to kill him. Acting on an appeal filed by Ansari against the High Court’s order, a division bench of Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath ordered a stay on the order and issued notices to the Uttar Pradesh government in the matter.
The incident pertains to April 23, 2003, when some people arrived to meet Mukhtar Ansari at the Lucknow District Jail where the complainant SK Awasthi was posted as the jailer. Matters came to a pass when the jailer refused to allow the group to meet Ansari. According to the FIR, Ansari then arrived at the jailer’s office and allegedly hurled abuses against him and also threatened to kill him. He then took a revolver from one of the persons who had come to meet him and pointed it toward Awasthi.
The trial court, which first heard the case based on the complainant’s FIR, acquitted Ansari in 2020. However, on September 21 last year, the High Court overturned the trial court’s order and held that the evidence on record proved that Ansari had taken a pistol/revolver from a visitor and pointed it toward the jailer, and threatened to kill him.
“The accused-respondent is convicted for offences under Sections 353, 504, 506 IPC. He is sentenced for offence under Section 353 IPC to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 2 years with fine of Rs 10,000. For offence under Section 504 IPC, he is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 2 years with fine of Rs 2,000. For offence under Section 506 IPC, the accused is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 7 years with fine of Rs 25,000. All the sentences would run concurrently,” the High Court had ruled.
Following the ruling, Ansari moved the apex court in appeal against the HC order. He was represented in the Supreme Court by senior advocate Kapil Sibal.