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The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday (September 29) rejected Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal's appeal against an order imposing a cost of ₹25,000 on him in connection with the disclosure of information concerning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's degree.

Kejriwal had preferred the appeal against the March 2023 judgment of a single judge, which had quashed a 2016 Central Information Commission (CIC) direction requiring Gujarat University to provide information concerning degrees in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The University had approached the single judge challenging the CIC's direction.

A division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice DN Ray while pronouncing the order dictated:

"In the totality of facts and circumstances of the present case no error in any of the submissions of the appellant herein can be found in the judgment impugned. The appeal stands dismissed accordingly with no further error as to costs. Civil application for stay is dismissed". 

A detailed copy of the order is awaited. 

The single judge had held that information concerning the Prime Minister's educational degrees was exempt from disclosure under Sections 8(1)(e) and 8(1)(j) of the Right to Information Act in the absence of any larger public interest warranting disclosure. The Court had also imposed a cost of ₹25,000 on Kejriwal.

During the hearing last week, Kejriwal's counsel in his rejoinder submissions pointed to paragraph 40 of the single judge's order which had imposed cost of Rs. 25,000 and said that the only thing put against him is that despite the degree being available on the website he still "persisted" with the matter.

"My learned friend from the other side had started by saying that they have already put the degree on website. If they have already put the degree on the website then where is the cause of action in the writ petition? As far as I am concerned, I am like a bystander I have not persisted with anything. I have not filed the RTI application, and these are all admitted facts. It was taken as suo-motu, I was made a respondent. Our submission is that we never persisted with anything. I am aggrieved with para 40," the counsel had said.

He had argued that the only allegation against Kejriwal was that despite the information being available on the University's website, he had "persisted" with the matter.

The counsel had further submitted that the University itself had stated that what was available on its website was a "record of degree" and not the degree itself.

In an earlier hearing the University had urged the High Court to impose further costs on Kejriwal to ensure that the RTI Act is not misused and government officials are not made to spend productive working hours dealing with requests that do not serve the Act's purpose.

Case title: ARVIND KEJRIWAL v/s GUJARAT UNIVERSITY & ORS.

R/CA/2234/2023 IN F/LPA/36863/2023 IN R/SCA/9476/2016

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