The Central Information Commission on 11 April closed a case relating to an RTI application filed, seeking information from Delhi University (DU) about whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in fact graduated from the University in 1978, as his election affidavit had stated.
An RTI applicant, Hans Raj Jain, had filed a plea in September, asking DU to reveal how many students bearing the name ‘Mr Narendra Modi’ had passed BA in 1978 as external students.
However, the CPIO of the Delhi University has declined to give this information, stating:
The information sought is too general, as he wanted to know details of all candidates bearing name starts with letters M(Modi) and N(Narendra). It is too difficult to search such names if the roll number is not provided.
When Jain failed to get the information he was after, he filed an appeal with the Central Information Commission which has now, six months after the initial plea, closed the case without the requested information being made public.
The PM’s election affidavit had also mentioned that he passed the Senior Secondary Board of Gujarat in 1967, and the Masters of Arts from Gujarat University, Ahmedabad in 1983. In September 2015, the Gujarat University, too, refused to share information relating to the PM’s Masters degree when requested by an RTI applicant. The University sent this one-line reply in Gujarati:
Under RTI act of 2005, this information can’t be made public.
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