Fake degree row: HC gives AAP MLA last chance to file reply

Delhi High Court today gave the last opportunity to AAP MLA Surender Singh to file his response to a petition of BJP leader Karan Singh Tanwar alleging that the legislator has a fake graduation degree.
Joint Registrar Neera Bharihoke directed Singh, the MLA from Delhi Cantonment, to file his response by August 6, as a last opportunity.
On May 18, Justice Hima Kohli had sought response from the MLA on Tanwar's plea that Singh had "misrepresented himself to be BA in 2012 from Sikkim University... Which amounts to corrupt practice within the meaning of the Representation of the People's Act 195."

"It is submitted that if he was serving in NSG (Indian Army) till the year 2011, it is beyond comprehension that he would have graduated or undertaken and completed his alleged BA course in the year 2012," Tanwar has said in his petition.
Tanwar based his allegation on an RTI reply received from the Sikkim University which said it did not have any record of a student named Surender Singh.
"As per the academic record of the year 2014-15 and all the past academic years, there is no student by the name of Surender Singh," the RTI reply of Sikkim University read.

"Singh has deprived the voters of Delhi Cantonment of their valuable right to have full and complete information as to his background and qualification," Tanwar has said, seeking direction to summon the record of the election affidavit.

On Tanwar's plea to declare Singh's election from Delhi Cantonment to be "void and the same be set aside," the High Court had sought the AAP MLA's response and posted the matter before Joint Registrar for completion of pleadings.
Singh is the second Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA after former law minister Jitender Singh Tomar, who is facing allegations over educational qualification and has had to step down. Tomar was later arrested in the case.

The plea against Tomar was filed by another BJP leader, Nand Kishore Garg, who is seeking his disqualification as MLA.