India’s HRD minister had asked university not to give info about her degree

Breaking News –With the Central Information Commission (CIC) directing the Central Board of Secondary Examination to allow inspection of the Class 10 and 12 school records of Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani, rejecting CBSE’s contention that it constituted “personal information”, Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan has welcomed the decision and dubbed it as a ‘perfectly correct order’.

Bhushan told media in India that the people who are in public service, who are MLAs and MPs or ministers should not be reluctant to show their degrees or show the details of their degrees. “I think it is a perfectly correct order. The Supreme Court had itself said that the people of the country have the right to know the educational qualification, criminal antecedents of candidates…And the very fact that they are reluctant and are opposing this shows there is something wrong. In Smriti Irani’s case earlier she had given contradictory claims in her different affidavit about her graduation degree,” he said.

After Central Information Commission’s order asking CBSE to allow inspection of her Class X and XII records, Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani t said that people are free to scrutinise even her nursery records. “Aap nursery ka bhi mang lo (you can ask for my nursery details too),” the minister, who formerly held the education portfolio, told reporters in Delhi. The CIC has  rejected CBSE’s contention that her educational qualification constituted “personal information”.

 Union Minister Smriti Irani had asked the Delhi University (DU) not to share information about her educational qualification with a person seeking it under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, an official of the varsity has told the Central Information Commission (CIC).
O P Tanwar, assistant registrar with the university’s school of open learning (SoL) and designated as the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) of the DU, told the CIC that he had consulted Irani over disclosure of information, sought by the RTI applicant, as it was a third party information under the provisions of the transparency law.

“In her response (Irani) raised objection against (sic) disclosure and requested the public authority not to reveal her educational qualification,” Information Commissioner Madabhushanam Sridhar Acharyulu noted in his order.

Irani, who is now Textile Minister, was then holding the HRD Ministry portfolio.

The university’s CPIO submitted before the CIC that information sought was given by the former HRD Minister in fiduciary capacity and hence could not be divulged as per Section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act.