Former Delhi Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar being taken to Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday. (Press Trust of India photo)
An extremely upset Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and several other senior Aam Aadmi Party leaders favour expelling Jitender Singh Tomar, the former Delhi law minister who was arrested this week for allegedly forging his degrees, sources have said.
Top leaders of the party met late in the night on Thursday to discuss Mr Tomar, who had resigned as minister on Tuesday after his arrest and is in police custody. A decision on action against him is likely to be taken in the next two days and will serve as a warning to others in the party, AAP leaders said.
At least two other AAP legislators - Surender Singh who represents Delhi Cantt and Vishesh Ravi from Karol Bagh - have been accused of faking degrees. Mr Singh has been taken to court by the BJP man he defeated in the Delhi elections.
Sources said Mr Kejriwal is very angry that Mr Tomar had convinced him that he was innocent by allegedly showing him a doctored Right to Information or RTI reply from a college in Uttar Pradesh where he claimed to have graduated from.
The Faizabad college in UP has denied that Mr Tomar was a student there. After his arrest, the Delhi Police took Mr Tomar to Faizabad as part of its investigation and will also take him today to Bihar, from where he claims to have got his law degree.
The police have filed a case of cheating and forgery against Mr Tomar and allege that a month-long investigation found he had not only submitted fake graduation and law degrees to register with the Bar Council of Delhi, but forged a migration certificate too.
In Faizabad, Mr Tomar was taken to the college and university he claims to have got his Bachelor of Science degree from and was made to meet teachers and officials at the institutions.
Police said he failed to locate the classroom for that course, the physics laboratory and the washroom. They alleged that the investigation at Faizabad "more or less" corroborated their earlier findings that his degrees were fabricated.
Mr Tomar, 49, is the AAP legislator from Delhi's Trinagar constituency. He was sworn in as a minister for the first time in February this year. He was earlier in the Congress.