The Allahabad High Court has stayed the arrest of former minister Azam Khan and his son Abdullah Azam Khan in a case related to recovery of a municipality machine during excavation at Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur.
The Division Bench of Justice Sunit Kumar and Justice Syed Vaiz Mian issued notice to the state government and the opposition, directing them to file reply within four weeks.
The court further told the petitioners to cooperate in the investigation.
Khan and his son were accused of stealing a machine, purchased by the municipality for cleaning of the city, in connivance with the chairman of the municipality.
The machine was recovered from the university campus.
An FIR was registered in Kotwali on February 19 this year, regarding the missing machine.
The petitioner said the case of Section 409 was not made out by the allegations of the FIR. He said the incident dated back to 2017, when he was not a public servant.
As per Khan, he was only the Chancellor of the University then.
He alleged that the FIR was not lodged by any officer of the municipality, but by a BJP leader, with political hatred.
Considering the issue to be sub-judice, the High Court stayed the arrest till the next hearing.