The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Allahabad High Court order, which convicted former UP lawmaker Mukhtar Ansari and and sentenced him to seven years imprisonment for threatening a jailer and pointing a pistol at him in 2003.

Ansari is currently lodged in Banda jail.

A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Vikram Nath issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government as it stayed the high court order. Ansari, a gangster-politician, filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging the high court convicting him.

In September last year, the high court had set aside a trial court order, which acquitted Ansari in the case. It held that the trial court had completely ignored the evidence of the jailor given in examination-in-chief and had only considered his cross examination as it found Ansari guilty under sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The high court had sentenced Ansari to two years rigorous imprisonment and fined him Rs 10,000 for offences under Section 353 and two years in jail and a fine of Rs 2,000 for offences under Section 504; and, also sentenced him to seven years in prison and imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 for offences under Section 506.

It had said that the trial court’s approach was palpably erroneous and the judgment and order passed by the trial court was unsustainable.

In 2003, the Lucknow district prison jailer lodged an FIR alleging that he was threatened for ordering frisking of people who had come to meet Ansari. The jailer also claimed that Ansari had pointed a pistol at him. The state government moved the high court after Ansari was acquitted by the trial court.

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