Delhi Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar has been arrested by the Delhi Police following allegations that he had faked his law degree.
Tomar has been taken to the Hauz Khas Police station. A First Information Report was registered by the Delhi Police last night.
Though the BJP and Congress has been demanding Tomar’s resignation since April, in the wake of the allegations, the arrest is being seen as a fresh twist in the face-off between the Lieutenant-Governor and the Delhi government.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh, who tweeted that the minister had been arrested without any information or prior notice, blamed the Narendra Modi government.
The Delhi Police is under the control of the Home ministry and the AAP claims the Centre is trying to rule Delhi by proxy, through the Lieutenant Governor.
The temporary truce between Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung ended on Tuesday after Jung appointed a Joint Commissioner in the Delhi Police, MK Meena, to the capital’s Anti-Corruption Branch or ACB.
Furious, the Aam Aadmi Party called it an “illegal appointment” and threatened to move court.
Despite BJP’s repeated appeals to arrest Tomar, the Delhi Police had said they could not do it without a legal opinion, since the case was being heard by the Delhi High Court.
In April, the Bihar-based Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University told the court that it has no record of Tomar’s law degree. The university said Tomar’s provisional certificate was “fabricated and doesn’t exist in the university’s record”.
