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Former BJP MLA from the Gosaiganj constituency of Ayodhya – Indra Pratap Tiwari – who has been convicted in a fake mark sheet case, surrendered before the MP-MLA court here on Friday.
Tiwari was currently out on bail. The surrender has come after the Allahabad High Court dismissed his appeal on March 17 against a trial court order that led to his conviction.
Talking to PTI, Dinesh Tiwari, Council for the MLA, said, “Indra Pratap Tiwari surrendered on Friday in the court of Special Judge MP-MLA Additional District Judge Ashok Dubey. The court took the former MLA in custody and sent him to jail.” Dismissing Tiwari’s appeal, the Lucknow bench of the court, earlier this month, noted that the former legislator should be taken into custody forthwith to serve out the sentence awarded to him by a sessions court in Ayodhya. In its order, the court took note of the fact that Tiwari had a criminal history of 35 cases. Besides the former MLA, the two other appellants were Kripa Nidhan Tiwari and Phool Chand Yadav.
“From the evidence led by the prosecution, the offences 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 offences,” the HC order read. In separate appeals, the three had challenged the 2021 judgment of a special MP-MLA court in Ayodhya, sentencing Tiwari to five years in jail. After his conviction in the case, Tiwari was disqualified. The appellants were put on trial for the offences committed while getting themselves admitted to Saket Mahavidyalaya in Ayodhya on the basis of fake mark sheets. A complaint was filed by the then principal of the college, Yaduvansh Ram Tripathi, 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.
