The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday rejected Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor Arvind Kejriwal’s appeal against an order that set aside a directive asking Gujarat University to disclose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s academic degree. A division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice DN Ray upheld the single judge’s order, finding no grounds to interfere with the decision quashing the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) 2016 directive and imposing a cost of Rs 25,000 on Kejriwal.
"In the totality of facts and circumstances of the present case, no error on any of the submissions of the appellant hearing can be found in the judgement impugned. The appeal stands dismissed accordingly with no further order as to cost,” the high court said in its order. While quashing the CIC order, the single-judge bench of the high court on March 31, 2023, also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on Kejriwal and reprimanded him for misusing the RTI provisions, saying his approach was casual.
During the hearings of his appeal, Kejriwal’s counsel, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, had challenged the basis for imposing costs, arguing that his client had not “persisted” seeking PM Modi’s degree, as against the single bench observation to this effect.
He had contended that the CIC had initiated proceedings ‘suo motu’ and named him as a respondent based on a letter and not a formal application. In 2016, Kejriwal had written to the CIC demanding that the prime minister’s degree should be made public. In April 2016, the then CIC M Sridhar Acharyulu had directed the Delhi University and the GU to provide information to Kejriwal on the degrees that Modi received.
Three months later, the High Court stayed the CIC order after the university approached it against that order. he CIC order came a day after Kejriwal wrote to it, saying he has no objection to government records about him being made public and wondered why the commission wanted to “hide” information on Modi’s educational qualifications.
Based on the letter, the CIC directed the University to give records of Modi’s educational qualifications to Kejriwal.
The university vehemently objected to the CIC order, saying that someone’s “irresponsible childish curiosity” cannot become public interest under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. In May 2016, the then GU Vice Chancellor, MN Patel, had announced that PM Modi completed his MA in Political Science in 1983 with 62.3 per cent as an external student.
While posting his degree on its website, the GU also challenged the CIC’s order in the High Court, with the single bench quashing the CIC directive and pulling it up for venturing into “judicial activism”, while imposing a cost of Rs 25,000 on Kejriwal. Kejriwal then challenged before the division bench of the High Court the single judge order.
(Note: Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by The Daily Jagran and has been published through a syndicated feed. Source - PTI)