Four appeals have been moved before the Delhi High Court challenging the order that blocked the release of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree details. The petitioners include AAP leader Sanjay Singh and RTI activist Neeraj Sharma.
New Delhi: Four appeals have been filed before the Delhi High Court asking for the disclosure of information related to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s educational degree.
These appeals challenge the decision of a single-judge bench of the Delhi High Court that, on August 25, had cancelled the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) 2016 order directing the Delhi University to share details of the Prime Minister’s degree.
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A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela will hear the appeals tomorrow. The petitions have been filed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh, RTI activist Neeraj Sharma, and advocate Mohd Irshad.
The controversy began in 2016 when former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal questioned PM Modi’s educational qualifications and asked him to
“come clean about his educational degrees” and “make them public.”
According to the election affidavit submitted by PM Modi, he completed his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Political Science from Delhi University in 1978.
Before that, in 2015, RTI activist Neeraj Sharma had filed an RTI application seeking details of all BA degrees awarded by Delhi University in the year 1978. However, the University refused to provide the information, calling it “private” and stating that it had “nothing to do with public interest.”
Unhappy with the denial, Sharma approached the Central Information Commission (CIC) in December 2016.
Information Commissioner Prof. M. Acharyulu then passed an order directing Delhi University to make the register containing the list of students who passed the Bachelor of Arts programme in 1978 public.
Following this order, on January 23, 2017, Delhi University approached the Delhi High Court challenging the CIC’s directive.
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The High Court issued notice to Neeraj Sharma and stayed the CIC order after Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta argued that the decision could have “far-reaching adverse consequences” since all universities in India hold degree records of crores of students “in a fiduciary capacity.”
After several years of hearings, Justice Sachin Datta of the Delhi High Court finally ruled on the matter on August 25, 2024. He set aside the CIC order and agreed with Delhi University’s argument that there was no public interest in disclosing PM Modi’s academic records.
Justice Datta observed that
“the marksheets/ results/ degree certificates/ academic records of any individual, even if that individual is a holder of a public office, are in the nature of personal information,”
and therefore, such information is exempt from disclosure under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The Court further noted that the CIC’s 2016 direction to disclose the Prime Minister’s degree was contrary to the legal principle that personal information, even of public figures, is protected unless there is a larger public interest involved.
After the single-judge’s decision in August this year, the matter has once again reached the Delhi High Court, where the appeals filed by Sanjay Singh, Neeraj Sharma, and advocate Mohd Irshad are now pending before the Division Bench.
The upcoming hearing will determine whether the CIC’s original order directing the disclosure of PM Modi’s degree details should be revived or if the High Court’s August 25 decision to keep such records confidential will stand.
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