Finally, after an year there is a new turn given given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s educational¬†qualification controversy.
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
The Prime Minister is said to have a B.A degree from the University of Delhi in 1978 and an M.A degree in Political Science from Gujarat University in 1983 and both of them have been brought into question.
The controversy started in 2016 when Arvind Kejriwal from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) raised a doubt on the Prime Minister’s educational qualifications.Based on some reports he alleged that the PM was deliberately withholding the concerned departments from releasing details about his educational qualifications and there is a possibility that he had no qualification at all.
The Central Information Commission had earlier allowed the inspection of Delhi University’s exam record of 1978,the year the PM Modi had graduated.
THE CURRENT SCENARIO OF THE CONTROVERSY
The¬†Delhi University told High¬†Court on Wednesday that¬†it cannot disclose the records of all its students from 1978 batch. The University said¬†those records are held in ‘fiduciary capacity’ and cannot be disclosed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
As of now,in the hearing on Wednesday,Justice Rajiv Shakhder said that¬†the court cannot take into account this submission made by the University as it had earlier closed DU’s right to file any further replies in the matter. It will have to first seek a recall of the court’s earlier order closing its right to file a reply and thereafter,its submission may be taken on record.
The Information Commissioner,Sridhar Acharyulu had allowed the inspection of the records but the¬†new affidavit by the university is challenging the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) earlier direction.But soon after this order, a reallocation of the work of the Information Commissioners took place.
In the affidavit filed through central government,standing counsel of DU,Arun Bhardwaj has said that the result of a student once declared is accessible only to that student and is “personal” to her or him and that disclosure of exam results of all the students could lead to “public embarrassment” of some or may cause “disturbance” of his/her routine life,as reported by the Outlook India.
It has also said that a separate mechanism is available for other institutions which want to verify the results or degrees of the students passed out from DU.
The School of Open Learning,DU is where the Prime Minister is said to have passed from.It has denied having any access to the concerned year’s examination records.
