A special MP/MLA on Saturday sentenced BJP MP Ram Shankar Katheria to two years’ jail in an assault case from 2011. The two-year sentence will mean that he faces disqualification, and is likely to lose his Lok Sabha seat.
The MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah was booked in a case from 2011 when he was accused of thrashing officials and staff of Torrent Power Limited in Agra. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was in power then.
The Hariparwat Police Station in Agra had booked him under section 147 (riots) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt to people).
On Saturday, Special Magistrate MP/MLA Court Anuj held him the former Minister of State for Human Resource Development guilty of the charges and also levied with a fine of Rs 50,000, reported PTI.
Following his conviction, Katheria said, “I respect the court order, but I will use my right to appeal in the higher court.”
Narrating the incident from 2011, Katheria said, “It was a matter related to an SC woman, who irons clothes on the Shamsabad road in Agra. She had complained to me about getting excessive electricity bill from Torrent. One day the woman came to my office and threatened to commit suicide in regard of the excessive bill case.”
After he heard the woman’s complaint, he approached the Torrent office and asked officials there to reconsider the bills, he said.
“In 2011, it was BSP’s government in Uttar Pradesh and many fake cases were registered against me. However, I have full respect for the court,” he added.
Katheria, who belongs to the Dhanuk community, a Dalit sub-caste, is also a professor of Hindi at Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Agra, and has been associated with the RSS at an early age.
In 2009, the 58-year-old lawmaker, won from the Agra Lok Sabha seat, and in 2014 he won again and was made MoS HRD. He stayed in that post from November 2014 to July 2016.
He was also appointed the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, and is a member of Parliament’s standing committee on defence and consultative committee, ministry of home affairs.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, after being denied ticket from the Agra seat, he contested from Etawah and won. In the run-up to the polls, he was booked for allegedly assaulting a cop at Patthra in Etawah district. He was also booked in a case related to an attack on a toll plaza staff at Yamuna Expressway in Agra.
Digvijaya Singh on Katheria’s disqualification
Following his disqualification, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Saturday said it was now to be seen when the Lok Sabha Speaker disqualifies Katheria after his conviction in the assault case.
“MP Ram Shankar Katheria has been sentenced. Rahul Gandhi was disqualified within 24 hours (after a Surat court convicted him in a defamation case). It will now be seen if Katheria’s membership is revoked or not. Let’s see how impartially the Lok Sabha Speaker works,” Singh said while reacting to this development, as quoted by PTI.
The sentencing of Katheria to two years meant he was disqualified as an MP and faced the prospect of not being able to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, states, “a person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his release.”