BJP MP Ram Shankar Katheria convicted in 2011 assault case, stares at likely disqualification

MP/MLA court sentences Etawah MP to 2 yrs in prison in 12-yr-old case against him for assaulting official of power distribution firm during a protest against the company at mall in Agra.

BJP MP from Etawah and former Union minister Ram Shankar Katheria | ANI file photo

AMIR QURESHI, The Print, 05 August, 2023, Agra : An MP/MLA court in Agra Saturday sentenced BJP MP from Etawah and former Union minister Ram Shankar Katheria to two years’ imprisonment in a 12-year-old assault case. He was also fined Rs 50,000.

Unless and until he gets a stay on his conviction, like Congress leader Rahul Gandhi did from the Supreme Court in a defamation case, Katheria will be disqualified as an MP and can’t contest the coming Lok Sabha elections. 

The sentence was pronounced by the court following a trial that lasted 12 years. The MP had been accused of assaulting an official of power distribution firm Torrent Power in 2011, during a protest against the company at Saket Mall in Agra. Katheria was Agra MP at the time. He was also accused of vandalising an office of the company at the time.

He was booked under IPC sections 147 (rioting) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt). The FIR was lodged against the MP at Hariparwat Police Station.

Katheria’s lawyer said he will be filing an appeal against the sentence in the higher court soon. For now, the MP has been granted bail.

Katheria was Agra MP for two consecutive terms from 2009 to 2019 and during his second term, he was appointed Union minister of state for human resources development, now called the education ministry. Later, he was made chairman of the National Scheduled Castes Commission. In the 2019 elections, Katheria was shifted to Etawah by the party high command, from where he was elected by a huge margin. 

Katheria also served as a professor of Hindi at the Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar University in Agra. He had earlier been charged with forging two of his degree marksheets allegedly to secure a job at the Agra University. In 2015, he was discharged in the case. Katheria also listed 20 other pending cases against him in his election affidavit.

(Edited by Gitanjali Das)