Gujarat High Court on Friday said the Chief Information Commission (CIC) “entertained” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s “oral request” under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree in a “very callous and cavalier manner”.
In a scathing indictment, the high court observed that the CIC was “well aware” that its order directing Gujarat University to furnish Modi’s degree was not “a specific and certain but a fishing and roving enquiry”.
Justice Biren Vaishnav reached the “inevitable conclusion” that there has been an “indiscriminate misuse of the salutary provisions of the RTI Act in the present case for the purposes not contemplated by the legislature while enacting the said [RTI] Act”.
The high court observed that the way Kejriwal made his request before the CIC “leaves much to be desired” while imposing a fine on Delhi's chief minister to the tune of Rs. 25,000.
“Such requests cannot be made so casually making a mockery of the very intent and purpose of the RTI Act,” the judge observed in his 79-paged order.
The high court’s order came on a plea filed by Gujarat University challenging the CIC’s 2016 order directing it to furnish Modi’s degree.
CIC ventured into judicial activism
The CIC passed statutory directions/orders completely trivialising the statutory jurisdiction vested in it, the high court added as it quashed the order directing Gujarat University to furnish Modi’s degree.
Coming down on the apex information commission, the high court said the Chief Information Commission “transgressed its authority 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.”
It appears that the Information Commissioner lost sight of the distinction between the judicial commission and public forum, Justice Biren Vaishnav observed. The judge further observed that the Information Commission’s “observation and the reasoning” were beyond the remit of judicial considerations deciding appeals under the RTI Act.
In conclusion, Justice Vaishnav observed that it was “a well-known fact that barring a few exceptions, most of the candidates elected to the Parliament or the State Legislatures are fairly educated even if they are not graduates or post-graduates.
“To think of illiterate candidates is based on a factually incorrect assumption. The experience and events in public life and the legislatures have demonstrated that the dividing line between the well-educated and less educated is rather thin, the judge said. “Much depends on the character of the individual, in the sense of devotion to the duty and the concern of the welfare of the people. These characteristics are not the monopoly of well-educated persons, he added.