Lucknow, June 10: Faizabad's Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University today said it had not given former Delhi law minister Jitendra Singh Tomar any BSc degree, reiterating a stand it took a few months ago in an RTI reply.
"We stuck to our position of January 22 this year when we had clarified in an RTI response that the claim of the minister was not corroborated by the documents in the university," varsity spokesperson S.N. Shukla said today, hours after the AAP leader was brought from Delhi and questioned in the presence of university officials.
Tomar, who resigned yesterday after being arrested over his fake law degree, told officials he had studied at Faizabad's K.S. Saket College, affiliated to the varsity. He said his enrolment number was "87" and roll number in the 1988 varsity exam "31331".
"The university authorities then brought out documents with these numbers but these were not in the name of the former minister," said a source in the university. After this, the source quoted Tomar as saying: "Are you sure, sir? This seems to be a conspiracy."
The Delhi police officers accompanying Tomar later asked him to recall his batch-mates at the college and the ex-minister rattled off some names but went mum when asked how many classes he had attended and who his professors were, the sources said.
Later, Tomar was also taken to K.S. Saket College. Its principal , S.N. Dubey, said: "No such student as Jitendra Singh Tomar is mentioned in the college admission register in the relevant year (1988)." Tomar had also mentioned the college in his election affidavit, saying he had obtained his BSc degree from there.
In January this year, the university had told Santosh Kumar Sharma, an RTI activist, that "the roll number series on Tomar's mark sheet looked fictitious and the vice-chancellor's signature on the degree did not match the original".
According to the sources, some Delhi officers had visited the varsity on May 24 this year for a "preliminary investigation" following the controversy over Tomar's degrees. This was done while the AAP leader was under the scanner over his law degree from a Bihar institute. If the BSc qualification is determined to be invalid, so will the law enrolment and the LLB degree.
The investigators were then told that the BSc degree "appears forged as no such document corroborating this existed in the university", the sources said. A.M. Ansari, the university's controller of examinations who had checked the authenticity of Tomar's BSc mark sheet, had said earlier this year "the document was fake".
Today, Tomar claimed before the officials that he originally hailed from Fatehpur-Murtazabad, 20km from Faizabad town, and visited the village often earlier.
Between 1984 and 1989, he said he stayed in Faizabad town's Amaniganj area when his father Balveer Singh Tomar, who was in the army, was transferred to nearby Ayodhya. It was during this time that he had enrolled at Saket College and got his BSc degree, he said. Later, Tomar said, his family shifted to Delhi and has been living there since then.
Asked if the Uttar Pradesh government would probe Tomar's alleged fake degree, state minister Shivpal Yadav said: "We will have a probe ordered. It is important to find out who had helped Tomar get the fake degree, if the charges of Delhi police are proved in a court of law."
Tomar also faces two Delhi High Court cases, alleging he had registered as an advocate with a fake law degree and seeking his prosecution.
Earlier today, Tomar told reporters at Lucknow station before being driven to Faizabad: "It (the arrest) is part of a conspiracy not to let the AAP government run in Delhi."
In Delhi, Jal Board vice-chairman Kapil Mishra was today named the new law minister, replacing Tomar.
