A Delhi court refused to grant interim relief to former Delhi law minister Jitender Singh Tomar, accused of having a fake degree, and deferred the hearing on his bail plea till June 16.

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjeev Jain deferred the bail hearing while observing that the investigating officer of the case was out of Delhi with the accused and that the progress report and documents related to the case were not available with the court.

“It is in the interest of all the parties that the bail plea is decided after considering the records on expiry of the police remand. Put up the bail application for June 16 before the court of competent jurisdiction,” the judge said.

The court said the matter requires “objective consideration” after going through the records.

“Order for interim bail will further complicate the matter and the same is neither appropriate nor desirable,” the judge said.

The court directed the investigating officer to appear in person with records of the case on the next date of hearing.

Delhi Police arrested the Aam Aadmi Party leader on Tuesday and slapped a case of cheating, forgery and conspiracy against him over his alleged fake law degree. A magistrate sent Tomar to four days in police custody.

Police, while seeking Tomar’s custody, told the court that the probe was in its initial stages and the documents pertaining to the law degree obtained by Tomar were fake.

Challenging the magisterial court order that granted the four-day custody, Tomar’s counsel Ramesh Gupta alleged that his client’s arrest was illegal.

Gupta, however, withdrew his plea on Thursday after the sessions judge granted him liberty to file a fresh and proper plea against the magisterial court order.

Arguing for bail, Gupta requested the court to grant Tomar interim bail till the final disposal of his regular bail, claiming that the AAP leader was “implicated in a false case”.

Gupta questioned the urgency of Tomar’s arrest by Delhi Police.

“Why was there such an urgency to arrest Tomar? He was abducted by police so that he could not move for anticipatory bail,” he said.

The counsel said the objective of the arrest was to “tarnish the image” of his client.

Delhi Police opposed the bail plea.

Public Prosecutor Tarunvir Singh Khehar requested the court to defer the hearing saying police were now “handicapped” as the investigating officer in the case was out of town with the entire case records.

The court asked police to conduct a thorough probe to ascertain the truth after counsel Gupta submitted before the court that “negative evidence” cannot be reliable evidence.

Gupta said that if someone said Tomar was not the student of the institute, it cannot be taken as reliable evidence.

He said there should be some “positive evidence” to prove that the documents were forged.

On this, the court observed that there were hundreds of records in a university regarding a student -- like admission register, fee slips, classroom records and teacher records.

The court asked police to ascertain every record and conduct a thorough probe by looking into all aspects.