Chicago – September 10, 2025
The court quashed the order that would have enabled the RTI activist to inspect Delhi University’s 1978 B.A. records, the year Narendra Modi graduated, The Hindu said.
“Something which is of interest to the public” is quite different from “something which is in the public interest”, Justice Sachin Dutta remarked as he set aside the CIC’s Dec 21, 2016 order.
In the 175-page combined judgement, Justice Datta also ruled against the CIC’s order asking the CBSE to share Class X and XII records of BJP leader Smriti Irani to a RTI applicant, saying, “there is no implicit public interest in respect of the information sought.”
Mr Modi has been quoted as giving different accounts of his educational qualifications, but it is baffling why his claim of being a graduate should not be verified on behalf of a curious public.
On the RTI plea of activist Neeraj, the CIC had ordered Delhi University (DU) to allow inspection of its register containing details of all students who passed the B.A. examination in 1978 — including their roll numbers, names, fathers’ names and marks — and to provide certified extracts of the relevant pages.
In its plea, the DU had contended that it cannot reveal details of personal information of all students, who had appeared in Bachelor of Arts in the year 1978, the year Mr Modi cleared the degree.
The DU had argued that the information of students is held in “fiduciary capacity, the same is exempt from disclosure” under the RTI Act. The university said the CIC order had “far-reaching adverse consequences” for all universities that held degrees of crores of students.
