'CIC transgressed jurisdiction and embarked into an arena of political thicket,' HC while setting aside order on PM's degree under RTI [Read Order]

The Gujarat High Court has set aside an order passed by the Central Information Commission in 2016 to the Gujarat University to disclose the degree of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in "a fishing and roving inquiry" at the oral request of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for "extraneous considerations".

A single bench of Justice Biren Vaishnav also imposed Rs 25,000 cost on Kejriwal for he "doubtlessly used an appeal against him to kick start and trigger a controversy not falling within the purview of the RTI Act for the objects and purpose this court need not go into".

The court also pointed out Kejriwal persisted with the matter before it despite the degree in question being put on the website of the petitioner University for all to see.

Allowing the University's appeal against the CIC's order of April 29, 2016, the bench said the information i.e. educational degree of any individual can be sought using RTI Act only when there is a pleading, which is proved by the applicant and thereafter satisfaction is reached by the authority under the Act that public interest requires disclosure of such information.

"Such public interest as used in Section 8(1)(e) and (j) would mean manifest public interest and not just curiosity of the RTI Applicant," it said.

Relying upon the 'Supreme Court of India Vs Subash Chandra Agrawal reported in (2020), the High Court also declared educational documents including degrees fall within ambit of personal information of a citizen, disclosure of which is exempted under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.

"Further, the said information is held by the Universities and Boards in fiduciary capacity on behalf of their students which is again exempted under Section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act," it said.

The HC also pointed out the information about educational degrees of Modi is already in public domain and the same is merely a matter of curiosity in public domain cannot be equated with public interest because only if public is interested in perusing certain information the same would not ipso facto fall within the legal ambit of public interest as contemplated under section 8(e) and (j) of the RTI Act.

In its order, the bench said, "the Commission transgressed its jurisdiction and embarked into an arena of political thicket and ventured into judicial activism on being overwhelmed by the fact that the information is sought by a citizen occupying the post of Chief Minister and thus is liable to be disclosed".

"This, in the opinion of the court, is clear transgression of the jurisdiction vested upon the Commission under the provisions of RTI Act making the impugned order completely unsustainable in the eyes of law. In the opinion of this court, it appears that the Information Commissioner has lost sight of the distinction between judicial commission and public forum," the bench added.

The court also said the Information Commissioner in its order "proceeded to give example of his father is more shocking than surprising. It is unbelievable that an authority exercising quasi-judicial powers at Second Appellate stage would exercise the power in such manner".

The Gujarat University was represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, and advocates Rajat Nair and Kanu Agarwal, while Kejriwal was led by senior advocate Percy Kavina.

[Read Order]