Bar & Bench: New Delhi: Friday, January 13, 2017.
Information
Commissioner Prof Madabhushanam Sridhar Acharyulu has been relieved of his
Ministry of Human Resources Development charge, reports Indian Express.
The move to
reassign the cases related to the HRD Ministry from the former NALSAR Professor
to another Information Commissioner comes weeks after Acharyulu passed an order
directing Delhi University to make public the register containing the list of
students who passed the Bachelor of Arts programme in 1978.
What makes
the aforementioned order controversial is the fact that Prime Minister Narendra
Modi is said to have graduated from the University with a BA in Political
Science that very year. As revealed by an answer on Quora, his election
affidavit filed for the 2012 Gujarat polls says that he graduated as a Bachelor
of Arts in Political Science in the year 1978.
The CIC order
stems from an RTI application made by Delhi resident Neeraj, who in 2015,
sought information regarding the degree and mark sheets of Prime Minister Modi.
After both the Public Information Officer and First Appellate Authority of the
University denied the information, the applicant approached the CIC.
The case was
heard on November 21 last year by Prof
Acharyulu, who directed the applicant to file a write submission, and the
public authority to respond by December 7.
During the
hearing on December 21, the CPIO of the University, Meenakshi Sahay submitted
that the information sought was “personal information” under Section 8(1)(j) of
the RTI Act, 2005, which the University held in a fiduciary capacity. She also stated
that the 1978 results were not available in digitised form.
The applicant
then narrowed down his request to the students under the B.A.(Pass) and
B.A.(Hons) lists, specifically relating to Political Science, along with the
name, father’s name and marks obtained.
While
arriving at his decision, the commissioner referred to the recently decided
case of the Supreme Court in Mairembam Prithviraj v. Pukhrem Sharat Chandra
Singh, where a Bench of Justice AR Dave and L Nageswara Rao held,
“Right to
vote would be meaningless unless the citizens are well informed about the
antecedents of a candidate… It is also clear from the provisions of the
Representation of the People Act 1951, Rules and Form 26 that there is a duty
cast on the candidates to give correct information about their educational
qualifications…”
Prof
Acharyulu went on to say,
“The
educational qualification of an individual is conferred to that individual in
convocation, meaning thereby that such a qualification is publicly celebrated
and there is nothing which affects the privacy of an individual by such
disclosure.”
He went on to
quote a decision of the CIC dated July 21 of last year, wherein it was held,
“…when there
is an apprehension or doubt about validity or existence of a qualification, it
is necessary to verify genuineness of the same…”
On finding
that the University regularly publishes the results of its examinations on the
website, the commissioner went on to note that the CPIO’s contention that the
information furnished by the students to the public authority is held in
fiduciary capacity is incorrect.
The order
ends with a direction to DU to allow the inspection of the register where
complete information about result of all students who passed the BA course in
1978 along with roll number, names of the students, father’s name and marks
obtained. The University was given time until December 30 to comply with this
order.
This ruling
seems to have ruffled a few feathers in the central government, with Chief Information
Commissioner RK Mathur performing a volte-face from his order dated December
29, in which Prof Acharyulu retained the HRD Ministry charge.
The latest
order dated January 10 has reassigned the charge to Manjula Parashar.
Prof
Acharyulu was a faculty at NALSAR, Hyderabad, where he was the MHRD Chair for
IPR in 2009-10. He left the University in November 2013, when he was appointed
as an officer of the Central Information Commission.