Rampur (UP) |Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan was sentenced to two years imprisonment by an MP/MLA court here on Saturday in a case of inflammatory speech during the 2019 general elections.

Judge Shobhit Bansal convicted Khan, 74, and sentenced him to two years imprisonment. He also imposed a fine of Rs. 2500 on the former Uttar Pradesh minister, according to Joint Director Prosecution Shiv Prakash Pandey.

The case was registered against Khan for allegedly making a provocative speech targeting the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, the then Rampur district election officer and the Election Commission at a rally in the Dhamora area on April 8, 2019 during the Lok Sabha polls.

Prosecution officer Amarnath Tiwari said the video surveillance team in-charge Anil Kumar Chauhan had registered the case against Khan.

An MP-MLA court here had last year convicted Khan in another hate speech case which was registered after he addressed a public meeting in Khatanagaria village of the Milak Kotwali area in 2019. He was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, following which he was disqualified from the UP assembly.

However, in May this year, a sessions court overturned the verdict of the lower court.

The former Samajwadi Party MP was lodged in jail for the last 27 months in connection with several cases, including for alleged land grabbing. He was released in May last year after being granted interim bail by Supreme Court.

After the verdict was pronounced on Saturday, Tiwari said that Azam Khan can be granted bail in the case under 389 CrPC.

The provision allows that pending any appeal by a convicted person, the appellate court may, for reasons to be recorded by it in writing, can order the suspension of sentence and grant bail, provided the sentence should not exceed three years.