The Supreme Court on December 14 conditionally suspended the conviction of former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Afzal Ansari in a 2007 Gangsters Act case.
A Bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and Ujjal Bhuyan in a majority verdict said that Mr. Ansari, a former MP from the Ghazipur constituency of Uttar Pradesh, will not cast his vote in the Lok Sabha nor draw any perk but can attend the proceedings of the House.
It also directed the Allahabad High Court to dispose of the former MP's criminal appeal against his conviction and sentence by June 30, 2024.
Justice Datta said he has differed in his opinion with the majority verdict and dismissed Mr. Ansari's appeal. On October 31, the top court had reserved its verdict on Ansari's plea seeking the suspension of his conviction in the case.
The Allahabad High Court on July 24 refused to suspend the conviction but granted bail to Mr. Ansari in the case.
The former MP appealed against the judgment of a special MP/MLA court that had sentenced him to four years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹1 lakh.
The special court in Ghazipur had on April 29 convicted Mr. Ansari and his brother Mukhtar Ansari, an ex-MLA, in the 2007 Gangsters Act case. While sentencing Afzal Ansari to four years in jail, it awarded 10 years of imprisonment to Mukhtar Ansari.
The brothers were booked under the U.P. 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.
Afzal Ansari was disqualified as a member of the Lok Sabha on May 1 after being convicted and sentenced in the kidnapping-murder case.
