Arvind Kejriwal seeks review of Gujarat HC order, says PM Modi’s degree not available on university website

In his review petition, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has also challenged the cost of Rs 25,000 that was imposed on him by the court for persisting with the matter of PM Narendra Modi’s degree.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has moved Gujarat High Court seeking a review of its order in March where it had allowed a Gujarat University petition and quashed and set aside an order of the Central Information Commission (CIC) that had directed the varsity to “search for information” regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degrees. The court of Justice Biren Vaishnav admitted the matter on Friday and issued rule to the respondent Gujarat University, Union of India, Chief Information Commissioner and then CIC commissioner Professor M Sridhar Acharyulu, who had passed the order.

The court is expected to take up the matter next for hearing on June 30.

The review petition moved by Kejriwal notes that while the court had recorded that PM Modi’s degree is available on the varsity’s website following submissions to that effect by Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, representing the university, “upon a scan of the said website…(it) is found that the said ‘degree’ is not available, but a document referred to as OR (Office Register) is displayed.” Pointing out that even the said OR “appears to be cryptic and without any seal or signatures of the authority,” its verification is “impossible”, the petition says.

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Kejriwal has submitted in his petition that the display of “degree” on the varsity’s official website is taken as the preliminary and main ground for seeking a review of the court’s earlier order. It has further been submitted that with the non-availability of the degree on the website, the judgment thus “suffers from the error apparent on the face of the record and permitting them would lead to failure of justice”.

Pointing that Mehta had only orally submitted on the day of the hearing, that too for the first time, that the degree is available on the website, Kejriwal has pleaded that there was thus no opportunity for him to verify the oral submission and that OR cannot be considered as degree as was claimed by the varsity.

Kejriwal has also challenged the cost of Rs 25,000 that was imposed on him by the court for persisting with the matter of PM Modi’s degree, in his review petition. Submitting that the petitioner had not filed any application for any information and only wrote a letter in April 2016 in response to a letter by CIC, Kejriwal has added that he “never requested the CIC to treat him as an applicant for the purposes of the said information,” and that CIC had instead taken up the proceedings suo motu.

Kejriwal has sought a review of the judgment and a stay on the implementation, operation and execution of the verdict until final disposal.

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