PM rank-and-file: RTI’s purpose not to satisfy curiosity, DU tells Delhi HC | Latest News India

New Delhi The University of Delhi on Monday said the purpose of the RTI was not to satisfy the curiosity of a third party as it challenged the Central Information Commission’s order to release details of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree.

Advocate General Tushar Mehta, appearing before Delhi High Court Justice Sachin Datta, said student information was held by a university in a “fiduciary capacity” and could not be disclosed to an outsider as the law exempted it.

“Section 6 mandates that information should be given, that is the purpose. But the RTI Act is not for the purpose of satisfying anybody’s curiosity,” he said.

The Right to Information legislation cannot be abused or misused by governing the disclosure of information unrelated to transparency and accountability in the functioning of government agencies, Mehta argued.

On the RTI request of an activist Neeraj, the Central Information Commission on 21 December 2016 allowed inspection of records of all students who had cleared the BA exam in 1978, the year Prime Minister Modi also passed it.

The plea sought details of students who wrote the exam in 1978.

However, the CIC order was stayed by the High Court on 23 January 2017.

Mehta said on Monday: “I can go and ask my university to give me my degree or my mark sheet or my papers if the rules allow it.. but 8 applies to a third party.”

Calling the CIC order contrary to established law, he said “arbitrary and impractical” demands under the RTI Act to disclose “any and all” information would be counterproductive and adversely affect the efficiency of the administration.

“He wants everyone’s information in the year 1978. Someone may come and say 1979; someone 1964. This university was established in 1922,” Mehta said.

DU had said that the CIC order had “far-reaching adverse consequences” for the petitioner and all universities in the country that had degrees of crores of students in a trusted capacity.

Challenging the CIC order, DU said the RTI authority’s order was “arbitrary” and “unsustainable in law” as the information sought to be disclosed was a “third party personal information”.

DU’s petition called it “completely illegal” for the CIC to have asked it to disclose such information available to it in a confidential capacity.

It argued that no finding was made of any pressing necessity or overriding public interest warranting disclosure of such information.

The RTI Act, it said, was reduced to a “joke” with queries seeking records of all students who passed the 1978 BA exam, 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 a third party’s personal information, noting that there was “neither merit nor legality” in it.

The university was directed to “facilitate the inspection” of the register, which kept the complete details of the results of all students who passed the BA examination in 1978 along with their roll number, students’ names, fathers’ names and marks obtained, and provide a certified copy of the extract, free.

The case will be heard later in January.

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