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Former Union minister Ram Shankar Katheria is new chief of National SC Commission
The post of National Commission for Scheduled Castes had been lying vacant since October 2016 when Congress Rajya Sabha MP PL Punia’s tenure ended.
Former Union minister Ram Shankar Katheria and national secretary of the BJP’s SC Morcha, L Murugan, have been appointed as the chairman and the vice-chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC).
The Prime Minister’s Office had cleared the names, after which the President approved their appointments.
They will hold office for a period of three years from the date of their joining the constitutional body tasked with safeguarding interests of people belonging to Scheduled Castes.
Katheria, a BJP MP from Agra who is accused of forging his graduation and post-graduation mark-sheets, was dropped from the Union council of ministers in July last year.
He had also courted a controversy in February last year for his alleged hate speech.
The MP had strongly denied all the allegations.
Also, K Ramulu from Telangana, Yogendra Paswan from Bihar and Swaraj Vidwan from Uttarakhand have been appointed as member of the commission.
The term of the previous chairman, PL Punia, a Congress Rajya Sabha MP, ended in October 2016, while the previous vice-chairperson Raj Kumar Verka retired six months ago.
In November last, Raju Parmar completed his tenure as a member of the commission, while the tenure of Ishwar Singh and PM Kamalamma ended in March.
