New Delhi: Setting aside a 2016 order of the Central Information Commission (CIC) directing Delhi University and Gujarat University to provide details of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s educational degrees to Arvind Kejriwal on Friday, the Gujarat High Court Said that the Chief Minister of Delhi had a motive behind asking. The information was “politically incriminating and motivated”.
Justice Biren Vaishnav also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on Kejriwal and observed that “in the absence of any larger public interest, which is neither advocated nor raised, the educational degrees of Shri Narendra Damodardas Modi shall be deemed to be infringing with the provisions of Section 8”. is exempted from disclosure under (1) (e) and (j) of the RTI Act.
Section 8(1)(e) of the Right to Information Act exempts from disclosure information “available to a person in his fiduciary relationship”, and Section 8(1)(j) exempts “personal information”, unless the authority is satisfied that the disclosure is necessary in the “larger public interest”.
The court also said that the constitution does not provide for any educational qualification for the leaders to be eligible for election. It was observed that “the line between the well-educated and the less-educated is rather thin”, and that “much depends on the character of the individual in the sense of devotion to duty and concern for the welfare of the people”.
“These attributes are not the monopoly of well-educated individuals,” it added.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Gujarat University challenging an order passed by the CIC in April 2016, directing it and Delhi University respectively to provide the AAP leader information about Modi’s undergraduate and postgraduate degrees I went. This was when the CIC was hearing an appeal related to an RTI application for information on Kejriwal’s electoral photo identity card. In response, Kejriwal wrote to the CIC seeking information about Modi’s educational qualification.
The commission then treated Kejriwal’s response as an “application under RTI in his capacity as a citizen” and directed the universities to provide the sought information.
During the High Court hearing, Gujarat University stated that “in compliance with the highest standards of fairness and transparency”, it had uploaded the degrees on its website on 9 May 2016. It had claimed that despite this, the defendants were “arbitrarily seeking to litigate the issue for extraneous and perverse purposes”.
However, it challenged the degree disclosure order, pointing out that it has awarded millions of degrees over the years, and because of this order, it would be “inundated with applications seeking such third party information”.
The High Court judgment now states that during the hearing, Kejriwal was given “full opportunity” to justify and explain the public purpose in disclosing Modi’s educational degrees through the RTI route, even though it was in the public domain. was available in In response, he justified the demand by saying that all information about a contesting candidate should be available in the public domain so that it can be scrutinized by the public, the judgment said.
However, the court noted that the intent and purpose behind Kejriwal’s request “seems to be… more politically vexatious and motivated, rather than based on sound public interest considerations.”
‘Law does not satisfy the curiosity of strangers’
Before the High Court, Gujarat University claimed that the CIC could not have issued such a direction in view of the exemptions under Section 8(1)(e) and 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act, 2005. It submitted that the objective of the RTI Act is to ensure transparency and not to satisfy the “curiosity of strangers”. It also claimed that the CIC had issued the order without issuing any notice to the university.
In its judgment, the High Court noted that it has been settled by the Supreme Court that individual professional records, including qualifications, performance, appraisal reports or disciplinary proceedings, are all personal information, and such information deserves protection from unwarranted intrusion. privacy.
Therefore, the High Court asserted that the educational degree of the students is exempted under Section 8(1)(e) and 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.
Kejriwal’s counsel had also stressed on a citizen’s right to vote, saying it also included the right to know about the educational qualifications of the candidates. Citing the Representation of the People Act 1951 and the Conduct of Elections (Rules) 1961, he had said that since these laws compel a candidate to disclose his educational qualification, such information would amount to public information under the RTI Act.
However, the court rejected this submission saying that as per the 1961 Rules, the candidate is not required to actually enclose the documents along with the affidavit.
‘Indiscriminate misuse’ of RTI Act
The High Court concluded that while passing the order, the CIC “was well aware that the direction he was giving was not a specific and definite one but a fishing and circling enquiry”. It was then observed that “beneficial provisions of the RTI Act have been indiscriminately misused in the present case”.
It specifically objected to the manner in which Kejriwal’s request was considered by the CIC when he was neither an applicant nor an appellant, but a respondent before the CIC. The High Court asserted that “such requests cannot be made so casually as to make mockery of the intent and purpose of the RTI Act”.
The court noted that the CIC accepted the oral request made by Kejriwal “in a very callous and presumptuous manner”.
It said that Kejriwal “undoubtedly used an appeal against him to initiate and trigger a controversy which does not come within the purview of the RTI Act and for the object and purpose there was no need to approach this court”.
The court then fined Kejriwal, saying he “stood by” despite the degree being posted on the university’s website.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)