Ex-NALSAR Prof, IC, MS Acharyulu relieved of HRD Ministry charge after Modi degree order

Information Commissioner Prof Madabhushanam Sridhar Acharyulu has been relieved of his Ministry of Human Resources Development charge, reports Indian Express..The move to reassign the cases related to the HRD Ministry from the former NALSAR Professor to another Information Commissioner comes weeks after Acharyulu passed an order directing Delhi University to make public the register containing the list of students who passed the Bachelor of Arts programme in 1978..What makes the aforementioned order controversial is the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have graduated from the University with a BA in Political Science that very year. As revealed by an answer on Quora, his election affidavit filed for the 2012 Gujarat polls says that he graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in the year 1978..The CIC order stems from an RTI application made by Delhi resident Neeraj, who in 2015, sought information regarding the degree and mark sheets of Prime Minister Modi. After both the Public Information Officer and First Appellate Authority of the University denied the information, the applicant approached the CIC..The case was heard on November 21 last year by Prof Acharyulu, who directed the applicant to file a write submission, and the public authority to respond by December 7..During the hearing on December 21, the CPIO of the University, Meenakshi Sahay submitted that the information sought was “personal information” under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act, 2005, which the University held in a fiduciary capacity. She also stated that the 1978 results were not available in digitised form..The applicant then narrowed down his request to the students under the B.A.(Pass) and B.A.(Hons) lists, specifically relating to Political Science, along with the name, father’s name and marks obtained..While arriving at his decision, the commissioner referred to the recently decided case of the Supreme Court in Mairembam Prithviraj v. Pukhrem Sharat Chandra Singh, where a Bench of Justice AR Dave and L Nageswara Rao held,.“Right to vote would be meaningless unless the citizens are well informed about the antecedents of a candidate… It is also clear from the provisions of the Representation of the People Act 1951, Rules and Form 26 that there is a duty cast on the candidates to give correct information about their educational qualifications…”.Prof Acharyulu went on to say,.“The educational qualification of an individual is conferred to that individual in convocation, meaning thereby that such a qualification is publicly celebrated and there is nothing which affects the privacy of an individual by such disclosure.”.He went on to quote a decision of the CIC dated July 21 of last year, wherein it was held,.“…when there is an apprehension or doubt about validity or existence of a qualification, it is necessary to verify genuineness of the same…”.On finding that the University regularly publishes the results of its examinations on the website, the commissioner went on to note that the CPIO’s contention that the information furnished by the students to the public authority is held in fiduciary capacity is incorrect..The order ends with a direction to DU to allow the inspection of the register where complete information about result of all students who passed the BA course in 1978 along with roll number, names of the students, father’s name and marks obtained. The University was given time until December 30 to comply with this order..This ruling seems to have ruffled a few feathers in the central government, with Chief Information Commissioner RK Mathur performing a volte-face from his order dated December 29, in which Prof Acharyulu retained the HRD Ministry charge..The latest order dated January 10 has reassigned the charge to Manjula Parashar..Prof Acharyulu was a faculty at NALSAR, Hyderabad, where he was the MHRD Chair for IPR in 2009-10. He left the University in November 2013, when he was appointed as an officer of the Central Information Commission..(Read the December 21 order below)