Samajwadi Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh minister Mohammad Azam Khan was remanded to 14 days of judicial custody by a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Ghaziabad on Sunday, 1 November, just a day after he walked out of Rampur jail. Khan will be lodged in Dasna District Jail in Ghaziabad, and will remain in judicial custody until 13 November.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) produced Khan before the court at around 10:30 am amid tight security, a day after arresting him on Saturday moments after his release from Rampur jail. The agency had sought his custody for further interrogation in the money-laundering investigation linked to the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust and Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur. The court, however, ordered judicial custody rather than ED custody.
Khan’s brief spell of freedom had followed relief from the Allahabad High Court, which on Thursday suspended his and his son Abdullah Azam Khan’s sentences and granted them bail in the dual PAN card case. Khan had been imprisoned for nearly 11 months, and his release on Saturday evening was short-lived: an ED team from the Lucknow zonal office was waiting at the jail premises and took him into custody as he stepped out.
The money-laundering case stems from multiple police FIRs lodged at Azeem Nagar police station in Rampur, alleging that agricultural land belonging to farmers was forcibly acquired for the university. The ED has said the university campus, owned by the Jauhar Trust founded and controlled by Khan, has an estimated market value of around Rs 1,170 crore, and the agency attached the land and buildings earlier in the week under the PMLA.
Khan’s lawyer, Danish Ali, argued in court that since the case dates back to 2019, the authorities could have acted through a B-warrant while Khan was already in custody, and alleged a violation of Section 19 of the PMLA, which governs the procedure for arrest. The ED, for its part, has said it needs to question Khan about the funding of the university and the money trail associated with it.
The arrest has triggered a political storm. The Samajwadi Party has accused the ruling BJP of vendetta, and Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh described the action as the “height of tyranny”, questioning the arrest of a 78-year-old leader immediately after the judiciary granted him bail. Khan himself alleged that he was being targeted for being a Muslim and for establishing a university.
The case now moves into its next legal phase, with Khan’s custody running until 13 November and his lawyers expected to challenge both the arrest and the remand. For Uttar Pradesh politics, the episode has already become a flashpoint in the running argument over central agencies, due process and the line between investigation and political targeting — an argument that shows no sign of cooling down.
