The Supreme Court today stayed the sentence of UP's Bahubali former MLA Mukhtar Ansari. Ansari had challenged the Allahabad High Court's order convicting him and sentencing him to one year imprisonment in the apex court. The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the UP government seeking its response in the matter. 

This case pertains to Mukhtar Ansari threatening and killing a jailer in 2003. Justice BR Gavai and Justice Vikram Nath's bench has called for a response from the Uttar Pradesh government in the matter while staying the sentence. Ansari, a former member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly, was acquitted by the lower court, but the Allahabad High Court overturned the order and sentenced him to seven years. 

The order of the Allahabad High Court was challenged by Ansari in the Supreme Court. Ansari was sentenced on 21 September 2022 by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court. He was convicted of threatening a jailer with a revolver. 

The High Court had sentenced the former Bahubali MLA, overturning the order of the lower court acquitting Ansari. This case is of 2003. Then Lucknow's District Jailor SK Awasthi lodged an FIR at the Alambagh police station alleging that Ansari had threatened him. Awasthi, in his complaint, had said that he had been threatened after he had given instructions to search the people who came to meet Ansari in jail. Awasthi had also alleged that Ansari pointed a pistol at him and abused him.

The High Court had considered Ansari as a dreaded criminal, Ansari is lodged in Banda jail . He has more than 60 cases of heinous crimes registered against him. Ansari is currently lodged in Banda Jail in Uttar Pradesh. Ansari was brought from a Punjab jail to Banda jail on April 7 following an order by the apex court.

Currently jailed for money laundering, let alone the possibility of release, Ansari has many cases against him. Bahubali Ansari was sent to jail in judicial custody as soon as the ED's custody remand in the money laundering case was completed on December 28. The court has sent Ansari to judicial custody till January 10, 2023. Therefore, there is no possibility of his release even after the stay of sentence in the case of threatening the jailer.