Delhi High Court on Monday set aside a Central Information Commission (CIC) order directing the disclosure of details about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BA degree, observing that an individual’s educational qualifications are “personal information”.
In the same order, the high court exempted the CBSE from making public the Class X and XII exam documents of BJP leader Smriti Irani.
“The fact that a person holds a public office does not, per se, render all personal information subject to public disclosure,” a single-judge bench of Justice Sachin Datta said on Monday while dealing with a Delhi University plea challenging the CIC order.
“This court is of the considered opinion that information pertaining to an individual’s educational qualifications, including degrees and marks, falls within the ambit of ‘personal information’ under Section 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act,” he added.
In its 175-page order, the high court sought to explain how the information was not in public interest and might amount to an invasion of privacy. “Something which is of interest to the public is quite different from something which is in the public interest,” the high court said.
The case dates back to December 21, 2016, when, based on an RTI application filed by Neeraj, the CIC allowed the inspection of records of all students who cleared the BA exam in 1978, the year Modi also passed it.
DU challenged the decisions in the high court and got a stay on the CIC order on January 23, 2017.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh wrote on X that “it is simply incomprehensible why the educational degree details of this particular PM should be kept a complete secret when such details of everyone else have always been and continue to be public”.
“This incidentally was the reason why amendments to the RTI Act, 2005, were bulldozed through Parliament six years ago in the face of our determined opposition,” he added.
“It’s fine if Modi has no degree. No big deal. What’s shameful is if he has lied about it,” Trinamool MP Saket Gokhale posted on X.