Lucknow: Abdullah Azam, Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA from Suar seat and son of party national general secretary Mohammad Azam Khan, has been disqualified from the membership of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly after being convicted by a Moradabad court for two years in Chhaljet case.

According to a notification issued by the assembly secretariat on Wednesday Abdullah will be considered disqualified with effect from February 13 and his seat has been declared vacant.

Notably, on Monday Azam and his MLA son Abdullah Azam were sentenced to two years imprisonment by an MP-MLA court here in a 15-year-old case. The special MP-MLA court sentenced Azam and Abdullah for two years under section 353 (criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and a penalty of Rs 3,000 each.

They were also sentenced in other sections of the IPC and all the punishments will go concurrently. The court later granted bail to Azam and Abdullah after furnishing bonds.

Azam and Abdullah were convicted in a case dating back to January 2008 lodged at Chhaljet police station. On January 29, 2008 Azam's cavalcade was stopped from checking perturbed with which the SP leader sat on a dharna on Haridwar highway which led to jam and the traffic movement came to a halt.

The Chhaljet police lodged a case against nine persons in this regard, including Azam and his son Abdullah. While Azam and Abdullah were convicted by the court the other seven accused were exonerated.

This is the second time when Abdullah has been disqualified from the membership of the assembly. In 2017 Abdullah was disqualified after being convicted by a court in a fake birth certificate case. At that time he was sentenced to two years imprisonment.

(With UNI inputs)