A Delhi court on Monday extended by four days the police custody of Delhi’s former law minister Jitender Singh Tomar, who has been arrested in a fake degree case.
The court order came after Delhi Police submitted that Tomar’s custody is required to ascertain the facts related to a migration certificate obtained by Bundelkhand University and accused the former minister of a obtaining a forged certificate, while Tomar’s lawyer argued that his custody has been sought just to satisfy the lt. governor, the central government and senior police officials.
Metropolitan Magistrate Preeti Parewa allowed Delhi Police to quiz Tomar till June 19.
The accused was presented before court after expiry of his two-day police remand.
Delhi Police arrested Tomar last Tuesday and slapped a case of cheating, forgery and conspiracy against him. He subsequently resigned from the Arvind Kejriwal government.
Appearing for police, public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava requested court to grant eight days’ police custody, saying that questioning of accused is required to ascertain various facts related to his studies.
The court was told that Tomar is required to be confronted with university officials and the students of the institute to ascertain whether he had studied in the college or not.
To ascertain the facts, police sought his custody for taking him to Bundelkhand and Bhagalpur, as well to find the materials, especially the seal, used in preparing the forged documents.
The fabricated migration certificate of his graduation was issued from Bundelkhand university and it was submitted to Tilka Manjhi University, Bhagalpur, from where Tomar claimed that he pursued his LLB degree.
Police apprised court that the migration certificate was of the year 2001 while Tomar had allegedly done his LLB first year in 1995.
The prosecutor said that he was also needed to be taken to Bihar’s Munger to verify his address mentioned in the migration certificate of Bundelkhand University.
Police said Tomar has been repeatedly saying he did not remember whenever asked about the college faculties and the place where he used to reside during his student days.
Defence counsel Rajiv Khosla however said police have not put any fresh facts while seeking custody, and since the case was based on documentary evidence, no further police custody was required. He requested court to send Tomar into judicial custody.
Noting that the principal of the college from where Tomar claims to have done his law education has already admitted that his client was the student there, he accused police for planting false evidence against his client.
Khosla told the magistrate that Tomar’s arrest was “illegal” and police have “misled” the court in taking six days of police remand till now.
Alleging police are seeking custody just to satisfy the lt. governor Najeeb Jung who is “an interested party in the case”, the central government and senior police officials, he said it was a special case planted after the tussle between the Aam Aadmi Party government and the lt. governor.