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A court in Sonbhadra of Uttar Pradesh on Friday sentenced Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Ramdular Gond to 25 years of rigorous imprisonment for the rape of a girl nine years ago, setting the stage for his disqualification from the Uttar Pradesh assembly.
According to the Representation of the People Act, a lawmaker sentenced to imprisonment of two years or more shall be disqualified "from the date of such conviction" and remain disqualified for another six years after serving time.
Ahsan Ullah Khan, the additional district and session judge of the MP-MLA court in Sonbhadra, also imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Gond which would be used in the rape survivor's rehabilitation.
The rape survivor is now married and the mother of an eight-year-old girl.
Special public prosecutor Satyaprakash Tripathi said the court held the MLA from Duddhi assembly seat -- reserved for Scheduled Tribes -- guilty on December 12.
The incident took place in 2014 and a case was registered against Gond under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) as well as under the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act on the complaint of the rape survivor's brother.
Gond was not an MLA at that time while his wife was a gram pradhan, Tripathi added. The trial in the case started in a POCSO court but was later transferred to the MP-MLA court when Gond was elected as a legislator.
Before the pronouncement of the verdict on Friday, the MLA's lawyer urged the court for minimum punishment. He also assured the court that Gond would take all care of the family of the rape survivor.
The rape survivor's brother expressed satisfaction over the court's verdict and said that she got justice after a long period of struggle.
The MLA, who was lodged in the district jail was brought to the court and taken back to the prison after the verdict was pronounced.
With Gond facing the prospect of losing Assembly membership, he is set to join an ignominious list of lawmakers from Uttar Pradesh who faced similar action in the past.
In October 2022, Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, representing the Rampur Sadar seat in the assembly, and the BJP's Vikram Singh Saini, an MLA from Khatauli in Muzaffarnagar, were disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
While the action against Khan was taken after being sentenced to three years in jail in a 2019 hate speech case, Saini was disqualified after he got a two-year jail term in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case.
Kuldeep Singh Sengar, an MLA from Unnao, was disqualified from the assembly in February 2020 following his conviction in a rape case. He was earlier expelled by the BJP.
Azam Khan's son and Samajwadi Party MLA Abdullah Azam Khan lost his assembly membership in February this year after being sentenced to two years imprisonment for staging a sit-in on a highway after his cavalcade was stopped by the police for checking following an attack on a CRPF camp in Rampur on December 31, 2007.
In May this year, BSP MP from Ghazipur Afzal Ansari was disqualified from the Lok Sabha after being sentenced to four years imprisonment in a kidnapping-and-murder case.
Afzal Ansari, the MP from Ghazipur, was sentenced by an MP/MLA court in connection with the murder of BJP MLA from Ghazipur Krishnanand Rai in 2005 and the kidnapping and murder of Varanasi-based trader Nand Kishore Rungta in 1997.
His brother Mukhtar was also convicted in the same case and sent to 10 years in jail.