Former Delhi Law Minister arrested for fake degree: Who is Jitender Singh Tomar?

Former Delhi law minister Jitendra Singh Tomar is presently under arrest in connection with a controversy over a fake degree was once a Congress politician who had never contested electoral politics. [caption id=“attachment_2287956” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Former Delhi Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar. PTI[/caption] The 49-year-old Tomar was born on 12 April, 1996 in Fatehpur village in the Etah district of Uttar Pradesh, according to the official Delhi government website. He did his schooling from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Before Tomar joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2013, he had been associated with Congress, though he had never fought an election before joining AAP, according to an IBNLive report. In the 2013 Delhi polls, Tomar contested from the Tri Nagar constituency and lost to BJP’s Nand Kishore Garg by a margin that was a little less than 3000 votes. However, he defeated the same candidate from the same constituency in the 2015 Delhi polls, but this time Tomar got won the seat by a margin of 22,311 votes. Tomar was initially sworn-in as cabinet minister and was given the portfolios of home, law and justice, tourism, art and culture. However, the home portfolio was taken away from Tomar in April this year when CM Kejriwal removed him as the state home minister reportedly because he was unhappy with the minister not routing some files through the CM’s office, according to an  Asian Age report. But the real trouble for Tomar began in February 2015, when a petition filed in the Delhi High Court based on an RTI query alleged that Tomar’s BSc degree from the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University was fake. In April, the Avadh University in Faizabad and one of its affiliated institutes, the KS Saket Postgraduate College in Ayodhya, in reply to the February RTI query, said Tomar’s BSc second year mark sheet was fake and his degree was invalid. The degree in question was used by him to get enrolled into the law college Bishwanath Singh Institute of Legal Studies College at Tilak Manjhi Bhagalpur University, Bihar. On 11 May, The Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) informed the high court that it had suspended Tomar’s licence. Tomar was arrested by the Delhi police over the fake law degree issue on Tuesday. He resigned as a minister in the Delhi cabinet on Tuesday night and on Tuesday was taken to Faizabad for further questioning.