The Allahabad High Court has recently dismissed an appeal filed by the former BJP MLA Indra Pratap Tiwari against a trial court order that convicted him in a fake mark sheet case.
Dismissing Tiwari’s appeal, the Lucknow bench of the court also said on Thursday that the former legislator should be taken into custody forthwith to serve out the sentence awarded to him by a sessions court in Ayodhya.
A bench headed by Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh passed the verdict.
The bench further dismissed the plea of two other convicts in the case and asked them to serve the remainder of their sentences.
In its order, the court noted that previously, Tiwari had a criminal history of 35 cases.
The judge said that “From the evidence led by the prosecution, the offenses under sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery), and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the IPC are fully made out and proved against the appellants and the trial court rightly convicted and sentenced the appellants for the aforesaid offenses.”
In separate appeals, the 3 had challenged the October 18, 2021 judgment of a special MP-MLA court in Ayodhya, sentencing Tiwari to 5 years in jail.
After his conviction in the case, Tiwari MLA of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Gosaiganj in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya district, was disqualified.
The appellants were put on trial for the offenses committed while getting themselves admitted to Saket Mahavidyalaya in Ayodhya on the basis of fake mark sheets.
A complaint was therefore filed by Yaduvansh Ram Tripathi (principal of the college), on February 14, 1992, and February 16, 1992, with the senior superintendent of police (SSP), Faizabad. Subsequently, a chargesheet was filed in the case.
The MP-MLA court convicted the trio of the charges against him on October 18, 2021.
It was argued on behalf of the convicts that the trial court committed an error in convicting them on the basis of documentary evidence, the original copies of which were not produced before it.
While opposing the plea, the state counsel argued that Tiwari had a criminal history of 35 cases and was absconding for 30 years, due to which the trial was delayed.
