Uttar Pradesh: BJP MLA awarded 5-year jail in fake marksheet case

AYODHYA: Special MP/MLA court of Faizabad on Monday sentenced BJP MLA Indra Pratap Tiwari alias Khabbu Tiwari to a jail term of five years in fake marksheet case.
Special judge Puja Singh delivered the final verdict prnouncing Tiwari as guilty in the case that was registered 28 years ago and awarded five-year jail term, slapped a fine of Rs 8,000 and sent him to jail.
Tiwari, against whom many other criminal cases are also pending in trial court, was elected MLA from Faizabad’s Gosaiganj assembly constituency in the 2017 elections.
The case was lodged in the year 1992 by the then principal of Saket Degree College in Ayodhya, Yaduvansh Ram Tripathi, at the Ram Janmabhoomi police station accusing Tiwari of using fake marksheet to get admission.
Tiwari was also elected secretary of the college students’ union in that year.
Tripathi, now deceased, then principal of Saket Degree College, had lodged an FIR on February 18, 1992, alleging that Khabbu Tiwari had failed in second year of graduation but took admission in next class by submitting a fake marksheet.
The chargesheet in the case registered in 1992 was filed in the court after 13 years even as several original documents disappeared from records in the trial and copies were prepared for the trial to proceed in court. Principal Tripathi also died during the protracted trial.
Mahendra Kumar Agrawal, then dean of Saket College and Ram Bahadur Singh, section officer of the college, were among the witnesses who testified against Tiwari in court.
MLA Tiwari was present in the court when the verdict was delivered. He was taken into custody and sent to jail.