NEW DELHI: Amid ongoing tug of war between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, Delhi Police arrested AAP leader and state Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar on charges of cheating and forgery and submitting fake degree while filing nomination for the assembly polls held in February this year.
Special Commissioner of Police Deepak Mishra confirmed that Tomar was arrested in fake degree case. He will be produced in the city court later in the day.
The police had registered an FIR into the matter on Tuesday 3 am and picked the minister from his home at 9 am and brought him to Hauz Khas police station for questioning. The FIR was lodged after police found incrementing documents and evidences while probing a complaint filed by Bar Council of India that Tomar was having fake law degree. A Delhi police team two weeks ago had gone to Bihar’s Munger to verify documents from a university there.
Sources said that Tomar was arrested between at 11am. Following his arrest, the police have cordoned off the entire Hauz Khas police station and deployed water cannons anticipating that AAP supporters will try to ghero the police station. Hundreds of police personnel have been deployed in the area.
Sources that Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi along with two senior officers met Jung on Monday to discuss the issue. Bassi also informed Jung about that probable arrest to the minister as all the evidences were against the minister.
Tomar was allegedly found to have “fake” law degree from a Bihar University following which the Bar Council of India had suspended his license to practice law till further inquiry into the matter in April this year. However, Tomar had defended his degree calling it genuine. “My law degree is 100 percent genuine,” Tomar said.
The matter came to light when Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University in Bihar submitted an affidavit in the Delhi High Court stating that Tomar's provisional certificate is “fabricated and does not exist in the institution's record”. “It is respectfully submitted that on the basis of the inquiry report, and in the university records, the provisional certificate bearing serial number 3687 was issued on July 29, 1999 to Sanjay Kumar Chaudhary for BA (Honours) Political Science examination held in 1998,” as per the affidavit placed before a bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher.
The affidavit further states that the provisional certificate in the name of the Tomar is a fabricated document and does not exist in the records of the university.