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Delhi University (DU) on Thursday told the Delhi High Court that it is ready to show its records related to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree to the court, but will not disclose it to strangers under the RTI. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta made this argument before Justice Sachin Dutta, after which the court reserved its decision on DU’s petition against the order of the Central Information Commission (CIC) directing disclosure of information regarding the Prime Minister’s graduation degree. Mehta said, “DU has no objection in showing it to the court, but it cannot put the university’s records before strangers for investigation.” He said that the CIC’s order is dismissible, because the ‘right to privacy’ is greater than the ‘right to know’.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said this
Mehta said, “The degree sought is of an alumnus, who is the Prime Minister. As a university, we have nothing to hide. We have year-wise records. The university has no objection in showing the record to the court. We have a degree dated 1978, which is of ‘Bachelor of Arts’.” The CIC had on December 21, 2016 allowed inspection of records of all students who had passed the BA exam in 1978, the same year in which PM Modi had cleared the exam, following an RTI application filed by a person named Neeraj. The RTI application had sought details of all students who had taken the exam in 1978. The high court had stayed the CIC order on January 23, 2017. The court also reserved its order on other similar petitions. The lawyers of the RTI applicants defended the CIC order on the ground that the Right to Information (RTI) Act provides for disclosure of the Prime Minister’s educational information in the larger public interest.
Misuse of RTI Act
Mehta said on Thursday that the ‘right to know’ is not unlimited and a person’s private information, which is not related to public interest or public duty, is protected from disclosure. He warned against the misuse of the RTI Act by “activists” and said allowing disclosure in the present case would lead to disclosure of RTI applications in respect of lakhs of students of the university. “This is not the purpose for which the RTI is envisaged. This Act is not enacted for Article 19(1). It is for transparency subject to (exceptions) under Section 8,” Mehta said. He alleged that the demand in the present case was made for political purpose. He said that just because the information is more than 20 years old, the test of “larger public interest” does not end.
Tushar Mehta said – this law is not for embarrassing others
Mehta said that this law is not for those “independent people” who are engaged in the work of “satisfying their curiosity” or “embarrassing” others. In the case of the request to make Prime Minister Modi’s degree public, Delhi University (DU) had argued in the Delhi High Court on February 11 that it has this information in the capacity of fiduciary and no one has the right to seek private information under the RTI Act on the basis of “mere curiosity” in the absence of public interest. The lawyer representing one of the RTI applicants had argued on February 19 that granting a degree to a student is not a private act but a public act falling under the purview of the Right to Information. Challenging the CIC order, DU said that the order of the RTI authority is “arbitrary” and “untenable in the eyes of law” because the information sought to be disclosed is “personal information of a third party”.
