Delhi High Court on Monday directed Delhi Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar to file a response on a BJP leader's plea seeking setting aside of his election over alleged wrong declaration of educational qualification in his nomination paper.
Delhi High Court on Monday directed Delhi Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar to file a response on a BJP leader's plea seeking setting aside of his election over alleged wrong declaration of educational qualification in his nomination paper.
Justice Manmohan said the minister should file his counter-affidavit within a month from the date he received notice on the plea of BJP leader Nand Kishore Garg who had fought the February 7 assembly polls against Tomar from Tri Nagar assembly constituency here. "On May 5, you (Tomar) received the notice in the matter.
I think your time ends on June 5, so you better do within that time," the court said, adding that the same should be done before the next date of hearing on August 19. Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India has told the court that they have preserved all the documents filed during the assembly polls by Tomar, who had contested on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket. The poll panel's response came after the court on March 25 asked it to preserve all documents in regard to the issues raised by Garg, the BJP candidate.
Garg had contended that the Law Minister was presently an influential person and may destroy documents from the custody of the poll panel. BJP leader alleged in his plea that Tomar's election had been "materially affected by deliberate concealment, misrepresentation, wrong declaration and wilful suppression of the educational qualification in the affidavit filed along with the nomination form".
"The respondent No 1 (Tomar), at the time of filing the nomination, and thereafter, has continued to misrepresent himself to be a law graduate and advocate and has thus been successful in exercising undue influence over the voters, which amounts to corrupt practice within the meaning of the Representation of the Peoples Act," the plea has said.
The issue of the validity of Tomar's law degree is being scrutinised by the high court on another petition, filed in February, alleging he had taken admission in the LLB course at the Bishwanath Singh Institute of Legal Study College in Bihar on the basis of a "fake" degree.
The Bar Council of Delhi also recently issued notice to Tomar, on the basis of a reply filed by the Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University in Faizabad, UP, which had said that the undergraduate degree, marksheets and roll number submitted by Tomar at the time of his admission to the LLB course were "completely fake".
Meanwhile, another bench of the high court, Justice Hima Kohli has sought a response from another AAP legislator Commando Surender Singh on a plea by BJP former MLA Karan Singh Tanwar seeking setting aside of his election from the Delhi Cantonment assembly constituency.
Tanwar said in his plea that the "election of respondent no.1 (Surender Singh) has been materially affected on account of non-declaration of government dues, non-furnishing of financial status and income tax returns and false declaration of the aforesaid material information."
Tanwar also alleged that Surender Singh had given false information with regard to his educational qualification.
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