The Gujarat High Court on 1 July stayed the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) order asking the Gujarat University to provide information on the degree earned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
A division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice VM Pancholi accepted the varsity’s demand for stay.
It also issued notices to Central Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu, the union government and Kejriwal seeking their responses and posted further hearing to 6 September.
The university had approached a single judge bench of the High Court last week seeking to quash the CIC order. However, justice SH Vora only issued notices to the three respondents, but did not stay the CIC order.
On April 29, CIC directed Delhi University and Gujarat University to provide information on degrees earned by Modi to the AAP leader.
CIC’s order came a day after Kejriwal wrote to Acharyulu saying he does not object to government records about him being made public and wondered why the Commission wanted to “hide” information on Modi’s educational qualification.
AAP had questioned Modi’s BA and MA degrees, alleging discrepancies in certificates. In response, BJP president Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had released copies of the Prime Minister’s degrees.
(With agency inputs.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)