Kapil Mishra to be Delhi's law minister, Tomar moves sessions court

Kapil Mishra to be Delhi's law minister, Tomar moves sessions court
Published on: 
Delhi Jal Board vice-chairman Kapil Mishra was today named as the new law Minister replacing Jitender Singh Tomar who had resigned from the post last night following his arrest on charge of possessing fake degrees.
"I had a meeting with Arvind ji (Kejriwal) and have been informed about the development (of appointment as the law minister)," Mishra, a first time MlA, told PTI.
Other names which were discussed were Chandani Chowk MlA Alka lamba, former law minister Somnath Bharti (Malviya Nagar) and Kailash Gahlot, legislator from Najafgarh.
34-year-old Mishra's name was also doing rounds for a ministerial berth when AAP had won a landslide victory in February this year. However, he was made the vice-chairman of Delhi Jal Board.
Known as a Kejriwal loyalist, Mishra has been associated with him since the India Against Corruption (IAC) days.
When Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan upped their ante against the party leadership, he took a lead in starting a signature campaign urging all MlAs to back Kejriwal.
Mishra, a former activist with an international organisation, won from Karawal Nagar by a margin of over 44,000 votes and took oath in Sanskrit in the Delhi Assembly.
Tomar was arrested yesterday for allegedly forging his science graduation and law mark sheets and a migration certificate. He was sent to four days police custody by a court.
He had sent his resignation letter through his lawyer from lock-up to the Chief Minister last night which was accepted.
Fake degree: Tomar moves sessions court challenging his arrest
New Delhi: Former Delhi law minister Jitender Singh Tomar today approached a sessions court here challenging his arrest in the alleged fake degree case.
In an application filed before the sessions court, Tomar alleged that police had arrested him yesterday in violation of prescribed procedure under the law.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjeev Jain refused to give an urgent hearing to Tomar's plea and said that the matter will be heard tomorrow.
49-year-old Tomar was arrested yesterday by Delhi Police on a FIR registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) for allegedly forging documents, including educational degrees, to enrol as an advocate.
He was remanded to four-day police custody till June 13 by a magisterial court.
Police had sought five-day custody of Tomar saying his educational certificates relating to law degree were "fabricated" and he was required to be taken to Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh and Bhagalpur in Bihar to ascertain his educational qualification.
Police had told the court that educational certificates which Tomar claimed to be true were fabricated and during their initial probe, the authorities who signed those certificates have denied their genuineness.
The investigating officer (IO) had told the court that on the basis of a complaint given by BCD, a preliminary enquiry was conducted and after taking reports from concerned universities, an FIR was lodged in the case.
Counsel appearing for Tomar had contended that police had arrested the minister without compliance of the provisions of the law and no notice under Section 160 of the CrPC was served to him prior to his arrest.
An FIR was registered against Tomar on June 8 at Hauz Khas police station and he was booked for alleged offences of cheating, forgery, using forged documents as genuine, forgery with intent to cheat and criminal conspiracy. Tomar was brought to Hauz Khas police station and later shifted to Vasant Vihar police station.
He was today taken to Faizabad by Delhi Police for gathering more evidence.
Police probing if organised racket is involved

New Delhi : Delhi Police is probing the possibility of an organised racket behind the alleged fake degrees of AAP leader Jitender Singh Tomar who was today taken to Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh for gathering more evidence in the case.
 
"Our team has just reached Faizabad. There our Investigating Officer will take help of Mr Tomar in gathering evidence from there and whatever on-spot verification will be needed will be done," Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi told reporters here today.
 
Tomar, who quit as Delhi law Minister after his arrest yesterday, claims to have done his BSc from RMl Avadh University, Faizabad. Police has taken him there for an on the spot verification and questioning, sources said.
 
Police may also take him to Munger in Bihar and repeat the exercise there.
 
Tomar had claimed to have completed his llB degree from VNSl Studies, a law college affiliated to Tilak Manjhi Bhagalpur University of Bihar.
 
Investigators are now trying to ascertain as to who made these alleged forged documents and whether an organised gang is behind it.
 
"Whether he made them himself or did he procure it from somewhere. If they were procured from somewhere, it will be important to zero down on the person who provided him these documents and if there is a racket, then who else did they provide such documents," he said.
 
49-year-old Tomar, MlA from Trinagar and a first-time minister, was remanded in four-day police custody by a Delhi court yesterday.
 
He was escorted by an ACP level officer along with seven other personnel to Faizabad.
 
More arrests are expected in this connection from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the sources added.
 
The police chief said that their experience says that if a person makes such fraudulent documents, he doesn't do it for single use and there are rackets for providing such degrees.
 
"So to maintain the educational standards of the country, we want to arrest the racketeer and interrogate him thoroughly and track all those to whom he might have provided similar documents and bring all of them to book. We want to catch everybody, whether he is a government official or a private person," said Bassi.
 
He also maintained that police had conducted a through probe into the case after they received a complaint from Delhi Bar Council on May 11 and Tomar was arrested only after they had concrete evidence against him.
 
Yesterday, police had claimed that a nearly month-long investigation found that Tomar not only submitted fake science graduation degree and law mark sheets to register with the Bar Council of Delhi but forged a migration certificate also.
 
Once police received the complaint, a preliminary enquiry, as per the directives of the Supreme Court, was launched and two teams were sent to verify the documents attached with the complaint to RMl Avadh University, Faizabad and Tilak Manjhi Bhagalpur University in Bihar, police said.
 
"In the record of K S Saket PG College, Ayodhya from where the alleged B.Sc degree and mark-sheets were issued in the name of Jitender Singh Tomar, no such student was found in the college admission register while roll numbers mentioned in the documents were not found in the university record," said Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat.
 
When the police team contacted the Controller of Examination of RMl Avadh University, he reported that no B.Sc degree and mark-sheets in the name of Jitender Singh Tomar have been issued by the University as per their record.
 
"We then checked the alleged provisional certificate of llB issued by Tilak Manjhi Bhagalpur University. A report from the university has termed the degree fake. The roll number mentioned in the provisional certificate of llB was found to be allotted to another student, Sanjay Kumar Chaudhary, from a different stream issued in 1999," Bhagat said.
 
The facsimile signatures of Rajender Prasad Singh as the Controller of Examination, on the marks sheet of llB (Part III) and Provisional Degree were found to be forged, he added.
 
Interestingly, VNSl Studies, Munger, law College, admission record, it has been shown that Tomar has obtained the B.Sc degree from RMl Avadh University, whereas in the record of Tilak Manjhi Bhagalpur University, he has shown to have been migrated from Bundelkhand University.
 
Daily Pioneer
dailypioneer.com