Doubling down his attack, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday raised questions on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s education qualification and asked if his “degree is fake”. This came a day after Gujarat High Court fined Kejriwal and ruled that Prime Minister’s degree details were not needed.
“An uneducated or less educated Prime Minister is dangerous for the country,” Kejriwal said while addressing a video conference.
If the prime minister had studied from Gujarat University or Delhi University, they should have been celebrating it, instead, they are hiding the information, the Delhi chief minister said.
“Is PM’s degree fake?… If there is a valid degree of Modi, why Gujarat University is not showing it”, he asked.
Alledging that there can be two reasons why the Prime Minister is not showing his degree, The Chief Minister said, “It is either because of his ego he doesn’t feel the need to show it to anyone but this kind of behaviour is not valid in a democracy. The other question that arises is that the degree might be fake.”
The Delhi CM alleged that people, who have the right to know about the academic qualification of PM Modi, are “stunned” by the Gujarat High Court’s verdict. “Entire country is stunned by the High Court’s order because there should be a freedom of seeking information and asking questions in a democracy,” Kejriwal said.
“The High court’s order has increased the suspicion over the prime minister’s education,” he charged.
He, however, went on to add that being illiterate is not “a crime or sin” as there is so much poverty in the country. “Many of us are not in a position to get formal education due to financial conditions in the families.” Such rank poverty continues to afflict the nation even after 75 years of independence, he added.
Kejriwal pressed on with his question on Modi’s education, saying the question becomes imperative since being the “top manager” of the country, Modi has to take so many important decisions every day, including those pertaining to science and economy.
“If the prime minister is not educated then the officers and various types of people will come and get his signature anywhere, get passed from him anything, like the note ban (demonetisation) due to which the country had to suffer a lot,” he charged.
“If Prime Minister Modi was educated he would not have implemented the note ban,” the CM added.
The Gujarat high court on Friday quashed a 2016 order of the Central Information Commission (CIC) which directed the Gujarat University to provide information on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, observing the AAP chief’s RTI plea appears to be more “politically vexatious and motivated” instead of being based on “sound public interest considerations.”
Holding that both the requests by Kejriwal and the order by the CIC were “absolutely causal” and there was an “indiscriminate misuse” of the RTI Act, Justice Biren Vaishnav also imposed a Rs 25,000 fine on the AAP leader, and asked him to deposit the amount within four weeks to the Gujarat State Legal Services Authority (GSLSA).
Expressing surprise that the CIC entertained Kejriwal’s request and issued an order, the single judge bench said, “Such requests cannot be made so casually making mockery of the very intent and purpose of the RTI Act.”
“This court finds that the CIC while passing the impugned order was well aware that what it was directing was not a specific and certain but a fishing and roving enquiry,” the bench said in its 79-page order.
It further observed that Kejriwal “doubtlessly used an appeal against him to kick start and trigger a controversy not falling within the purview of the RTI Act”.
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