The Gujarat High Court on February 9 reserved its order on a petition moved by Gujarat University (GU) against the direction of the Central Information Commission (CIC), New Delhi, asking it to provide information concerning the educational degree of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The matter came up in the Court after the GU moved a special civil application before it, contending that the CIC passed the order without serving notice to it. A single bench of Justice Biren Vaishnav heard the matter. Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta appeared for the University, while Senior Advocate Percy Kavina and Advocate Aum Kotwal appeared for Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
SG Tushar Mehta cited exceptions granted under the Right to Information (RTI) Act for not conforming to the seven-year-old order of the CIC.
The University contended that it was holding the information in a fiduciary capacity. Calling attention to Section 8(1) (e) of the Right to Information Act, SG argued that information held in a fiduciary capacity could not be disclosed “unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information”. He further added that whether the holder of an office is illiterate or a doctorate cannot be a matter of public activity. “Just because the public is interested, it can’t be held that it is of public interest”, he said. He remarked that such irresponsible, childish curiosity of someone couldn’t be deemed public interest.
Appearing for Kejriwal, Senior Advocate Percy Kavina responded, “Settling political scores and politics is inextricably linked with this matter because of the allied parties who are politically antithetical to each other.” He stated that the provisions of RTI are clear and that one shouldn’t be required to specify the purpose of seeking information.
Kavina further argued that when the Representation of the People Act (RPA) mandates that politicians contesting elections must reveal their educational qualifications, exemptions about nondisclosure under Section 8 of the legislation are not applicable in those cases.
Responding to the above, SG Mehta said even if the more than seven-decade-old election law directs that candidates fighting polls need to provide details about their educational qualifications when submitting nomination papers, a third person cannot file an RTI plea with the Returning Officer to seek that information.
In April 2016, Arvind Kejriwal demanded that details of PM Modi’s education be made public. The then CIC M Sridhar Acharyulu had directed the Delhi University (DU) and the GU to provide information on degrees earned by PM Modi to Arvind Kejriwal. After three months, the Gujarat High Court stayed the CIC order asking the Ahmedabad-based University to provide the required information. The CIC order emerged a day after Kejriwal wrote to Acharyulu, saying he has no objection to Government records about him being made public. He speculated why the commission wanted to conceal PM Modi’s educational qualifications.
Activist Neeraj Kumar had filed an RTI application seeking the result of all the students who appeared in BA in 1978 along with their enrolment number, name, marks and result displaying if they passed or failed. The DU’s Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) denied the information. “The information pertaining to the student of the SOL DU is treated as personal information of the student concerned, the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest,” the RTI reply stated. It further said that if the applicant is not satisfied with the reply, he can appeal to the Appellate Authority of the School of Open Learning (SOL) Delhi University within 30 days of the issue of the reply letter.
The RTI activist then filed an appeal before the CIC.
The DU registrar had then stated, “We have checked our records and it has been authenticated that PM Narendra Modi’s degree is authentic. He cleared the examination in 1978 and was awarded the degree in 1979. We would like to state that Narendra Damodardas Modi had qualified for the degree of Bachelors in Arts. His enrolment number was CC 594/74 and his examination roll number was 16594.”The BJP had also made PM Modi’s certificates public – a Bachelor of Arts from DU and a Master of Arts in political science from GU. The details were also shared by the two universities, but the AAP claimed there were discrepancies in the DU documents.
During one of the hearings in February 2019, the matter was adjoined with a set of petitions posing the question concerning the interpretation of Sections 8(1) (e) and (j) of the RTI Act. The Court had noted that the provision outlines “exemptions from disclosure of information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship and of personal information, the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of an individual.”
The Court reserved the Judgment on the present petition by the GU challenging the CIC order.
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