An Agra sessions court has stayed the conviction of BJP leader and former Union minister Ram Shankar Katheria in a 2011 assault and rioting case, said reports. This comes two days after he was sentenced to two years in prison and was slapped with a fine of Rs 50,000.
The Lok Sabha MP from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, who was convicted of thrashing staffers of Torrent Power Limited in 2011, welcomed the order and said he got justice, according to Hindustan Times.
The development comes in the backdrop of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi being reinstated as Lok Sabha MP from Keral's Wayanad on Monday after the Supreme Court stayed his conviction on Saturday in a 2019 defamation case connected to the "Modi surname" remark.
Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath on Sunday sought the disqualification of Katheria as Lok Sabha legislator claiming his conviction was for an offence graver than what Rahul Gandhi was accused of. "He (Ram Shankar Katheria) should be disqualified. The law is equal for everyone. Now the Supreme Court decision has also come in the case of Rahul Gandhi. There is a big difference between what he (Katheria) did and what Rahul Gandhi is accused of,” PTI quoted Nath as saying.
On Saturday, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said Gandhi was disqualified within 24 hours of a Surat court convicting the latter. "It will now be seen if Katheria's (LS) membership is revoked or not. Let's see how impartially the Lok Sabha Speaker works," Singh had said.
Gandhi was disqualified as Lok Sabha MP on March 24 after the metropolitan court in Surat in Gujarat handed him two years in jail in the case a day earlier. On July 7, the Gujarat High Court dismissed his plea seeking a stay on the conviction, after which he approached the apex court on July 15.
– With PTI inputs