NEW DELHI: Should the educational qualifications of Indian leaders be subject to public scrutiny? The question was answered in the negative by the Delhi High Court on Monday, which quashed the Central Information Commission’s 2016 order permitting a RTI activist to look at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s B.A. records, assuming the records exist.

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.”

Observes something which is of ‘interest to public’ is different from something in ‘public interest’

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.

After the DU challenged the CIC’s order, the court stayed it on the very first hearing, Jan 24, 2017.

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.

Justice Dutta agreed with the DU’s contention, noting the “court cannot be oblivious to the reality that what may superficially appear to be an innocuous or isolated disclosure could open the floodgates of indiscriminate demands, motivated by idle curiosity or sensationalism, rather than any objective “public interest” consideration.”

“The fact that the information sought pertains to a public figure does not extinguish privacy/confidentiality rights over personal data, unconnected with public duties,” the court added.

Justice Dutta said: “Such data, which pertains to various facets of a student’s academic life, is held by the university in trust and confidence, and there is a legitimate expectation on the part of the students that confidentiality shall be maintained with regard thereto”.

Previously, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the DU, argued that the purpose of RTI was not to satiate a third party’s curiosity.

“Section 6 provides a mandate that information will have to be given, that is the purpose. But the RTI Act is not for the purpose of satisfying someone’s curiosity,” Mr Mehta had argued.

The CIC, in its order, told the DU to allow inspection and rejected the argument of its public information officer that it was third party personal information, observing there was “neither merit, nor legality” in it.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2025