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, P L 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 P M Kamalamma ended in March.
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