Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court today, dismissed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s request for a review of its previous decision that overturned the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) order instructing Gujarat University to disclose information about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s educational degree.

Justice Biren Vaishnav rejected the Aam Aadmi Party leader’s review petition filed in June. The high court had reserved judgment after both sides made final submissions in September.

In March, Justice Vaishnav had set aside the CIC’s directive to Gujarat University to provide information to Kejriwal regarding Prime Minister Modi’s Master of Arts (MA) degree, upholding the university’s appeal against the CIC order. A fine of Rs 25,000 was also imposed on the Delhi chief minister.

One of the key arguments in Kejriwal’s review plea was that, contrary to Gujarat University’s claim that Modi’s degree was available online, no information was found on the university’s website.

During the previous hearing, senior lawyer Percy Kavina, representing Kejriwal, had asked Justice Vaishnav to reconsider his judgment, claiming that Gujarat University never uploaded Modi’s degree on its website, as submitted before the court.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing Gujarat University, argued that Kejriwal’s review plea was aimed at “keeping the controversy alive for no reason.” The university is exempted from sharing a student’s degree under the Right To Information Act unless it is in the public interest, but the GU management did upload the degree on its website in June 2016 and informed the petitioner about it, he said.

In April 2016, then Chief Information Commissioner Acharyulu had directed Delhi University and Gujarat University to provide information to Kejriwal on Modi’s degrees.

But,GU objected to this order saying “irresponsible childish curiosity” of someone cannot become public interest under the RTI Act. Mehta told the HC that there was nothing to hide because information about the PM’s degrees was “already in the public domain,” and the university had placed the information on its website on a particular date. Still, Kejriwal’s review plea argued that no degree was available on the varsity’s website, and instead, a document described as “Office Register (OR)” was displayed, which was different from a degree. DeshGujarat