A member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet was sentenced to a year in prison on Wednesday after he was found guilty of unlawful assembly in the run up to national elections in 2009. 

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Minister of State for Parliamentary and Minority Affairs, who is a member of the upper house of Parliament, was convicted of making a speech outside a police station in Uttar Pradesh when his convoy was stopped by police on the campaign trail.

Convicted criminals are barred from Parliament after a landmark judgment in 2013 that said even those appealing a verdict against them were prohibited from serving as lawmakers. Before the Supreme Court ruling, around one third of India’s parliamentarians had criminal convictions or cases against them.