Centre nominates Ram Shankar Katheria as SC panel chief

The Centre nominated former Union minister Ram Shankar Katheria and national secretary of the BJP's SC Morcha L Murugan as the chairman and the vice- chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes respectively.

The Prime Minister's Office cleared the names for the posts and those have been sent for the President's approval.

"Once the President gives his assent, these will be notified," an official in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment said. 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 2016. He had courted a controversy in February 2016 for his alleged hate speech. The MP strongly denied all the allegations. The government has also decided to nominate K Ramulu from Telangana, Yogeshwar Paswan from Bihar and Swaraj Vidwan from Uttarakhand as members of the commission.

The NCSC, a constitutional body tasked with safeguarding interests of people belonging to Scheduled Caste, does not have a chairman for over seven-and-half months. The term of the previous chairman, P L Punia, a Congress Rajya Sabha MP, had ended in October 2016, while the previous vice-chairperson Raj Kumar Verka had retired six months ago. In November 2016 Raju Parmar completed his tenure as a member of the commission, while Ishwar Singh and P M Kamalamma's tenure ended in March.