Rioting Case | Agra Court Stays Conviction Of BJP MP Ram Shankar Katheria, Lok Sabha Membership No More In Peril

Two days after an MP/MLA Court in Uttar Pradesh's Agra District convicted BJP MP (representing Etawah) Dr Ram Shankar Katheria in a 2011 case lodged against him under Sections 147 (Rioting), 323 (Voluntary Causing Hurt) IPC, a Sessions Court has STAYED the conviction and has granted him regular bail.

The stay on conviction means that MP Katheria will not be disqualified from Lok Sabha.

Earlier, on August 5, he was sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment in the case and a fine of Rs. 50,000/- has also been imposed on him. Challenging the same, he had moved the Sessions Court, which granted him relief on Monday. 

Essentially, the MP/MLA Court had found him guilty of vandalizing Torrent Power Limited company's office in Agra's Saket Mall in 2011 by creating a ruckus. The FIR in the case was lodged on the allegations that on November 16, 2011, when the Manager of the company was hearing and disposing of cases related to power theft, Dr. Katheria, along with his 10 to 15 supporters entered the office and used force against him resulting in bodily injuries.

Due to this order of the Court, Dr. Katheri's Lok Sabha membership was in peril in terms of Article 102(1)(e) of the Constitution read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

For context, the 1951 Act provides that a person would be disqualified from their membership of either House of the Parliament or the state legislative assembly or council if convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years after their release.

Challenging the finding of the MP/MLA Court, in his appeal, BJP MP Katheria stated that there were no “eyewitnesses” in the case except the victim and many of the witnesses had turned hostile, however, the court ignored these facts while convicting him.

In the past, Katheria has served as the Union Minister of State, Ministry of Human Resource Development (November 2014- July 2016). He has also served as the chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. Before joining the BJP, he was working as a Professor of Hindi at Agra University where he took lectures on 'Dalit Chetna' (Dalit upliftment). He has also authored several books on the subject.