While allowing the university’s petition challenging the CIC’s suo motu order, Justice Biren Vaishnav imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on Kejriwal asking him to deposit the amount with the Gujarat State Legal Services Authority within four weeks. The HC rejected Kejriwal’s request to stay the order for some time.
Slamming the verdict, Kejriwal wondered whether the country does not have the right to know about the educational qualification of its Prime Minister.
“Doesn’t the country even have the right to know about the qualification of its PM? He [Modi] vehemently opposed showing the degree in the court. Why? And those who demand to see their degree will be fined? What is happening? An illiterate or less qualified PM is very dangerous for the country,” he tweeted in Hindi.
The GU had challenged CIC’s order to make Modi’s MA degree, reportedly issued in 1983, available to Kejriwal. The university took exception to an alleged misuse of RTI provisions to contend whether RTI can be applied to disclose Modi’s degree “for the purpose of satisfying somebody’s childish curiosity or to give a job opportunity to few individuals who are misusing it?”
During the hearing, the GU informed the HC that Modi’s degree had already been placed on its website. But the university had decided to contest the CIC order in principle that it cannot part with information of its students because of its fiduciary relationship with them, which is exempted from disclosure under section 8 of the RTI Act. Besides, this is an information pertaining to third party and the university is under obligation not to disclose information of third party.
The university argued that there was no larger public interest involved that warranted disclosure of personal information of the Prime Minister. The university took exception to the CIC for using suo motu powers to pass the order to make Modi’s degree public, though it had no direct relationship with public activity.
Besides ordering GU to supply Modi’s MA degree obtained in 1983, the CIC had ordered the Delhi University to furnish Modi’s BA degree taken in 1978. The Gujarat HC in 2016, had stayed CIC’s order.
For Kejriwal, it was submitted during the hearing that the Gujarat University was holding Modi’s brief, as Modi himself had not chosen to challenge the CIC’s order.