New Delhi: Delhi University (DU) on Thursday informed the Delhi High Court that it was willing to show to court its records on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree but not disclose it to strangers under RTI.
Appearing before Justice Sachin Datta, solicitor general Tushar Mehta made the submission following which the court reserved its verdict on DU’s plea against a CIC order directing disclosure of information with respect to the bachelor’s degree of the prime minister.
“DU has no reservation in showing it to the court (but can’t) put the university’s record for scrutiny by strangers,” Mehta said.
The order of the CIC, he said, deserved to be set aside for the “right to privacy” superseded the “right to know”.
“What is demanded is the degree of an erstwhile student who is the Prime Minister. As a university, we have nothing to hide. We have the year-wise record. University has no objection in showing the record to the court. There is a degree from 1978, bachelor of art,” Mehta submitted.
Following an RTI application by one Neeraj, the Central Information Commission (CIC) on December 21, 2016, allowed inspection of records of all students who cleared the BA exam in 1978 — the year Prime Minister Modi also passed it.
The RTI plea sought details of all the students who wrote the exam in 1978.
The high court stayed the CIC order on January 23, 2017.
The court also reserved its judgement on other similar petitions as well.
The lawyers for the RTI applicants defended the CIC’s order on the ground that Right to Information (RTI) Act provided for disclosure of the prime minister’s educational information in greater public good.
On Thursday, Mehta said the “right to know” was not untrammelled and personal information of an individual, which was unrelated to public interest or public office, was protected from disclosure.
He cautioned against the misuse of the RTI Act by “activists” and said allowing disclosure in the present case would result in the varsity being exposed to RTI applications in relation to lakhs of its students.
“This is not the object for which RTI is envisaged. The Act is not enacted for Article 19(1). It is for transparency subject to (exceptions) under section 8,” Mehta said, alleging the demand in the present case was for a political purpose.
He said that only because the information was more than 20 years old, the test of “larger public interest does not evaporate”.
The law, he said, was not for “free people” who were “out to satisfy their curiosity” or “embarrass” others.
On February 11, DU said it was holding the information of its students in a fiduciary capacity and “mere curiosity” in the absence of public interest did not entitle anyone to seek private information under RTI law.
It said something being of “interest to public” was not the same as “public interest” to warrant disclosure under the RTI Act and there was no such public interest in this case.
On February 19, the lawyer representing one of the RTI applicants argued awarding a degree to a student was not a private act but a public one covered under the ambit of right to information.
In its challenge to the CIC order, DU has said the order of the RTI authority was “arbitrary” and “untenable in law” as the information sought to be disclosed was a “third party personal information”.
The DU has said it was “completely illegal” for the CIC to direct the disclosure of an information, which is available to it in a fiduciary capacity.
The RTI Act, it said, was reduced to a “joke” with queries seeking records of all students who passed the BA examination in 1978, including the Prime Minister.
The CIC, in its order, asked DU to allow inspection and rejected the argument of its public information officer that it was third party personal information, observing there was “neither merit, nor legality” in it.
The university was directed to “facilitate inspection” of the register which stored the complete information on results of all students who cleared the BA exam in 1978 along with their roll number, names of the students, fathers’ names and marks obtained, and provide a certified copy of the extract, free of cost.
