Three Aam Aadmi Party leaders today met Delhi University authorities to seek proof of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's graduation degree and claimed that the varsity asked them to approach PMO for the information.
While the Vice Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi did not comment on today's meeting, he maintained that the university's RTI department is looking into the issue.
The AAP leaders' visit to the university came a week after the Central Information Commission directed DU and Gujarat University to provide the information to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who had recently criticised the functioning of the transparency panel.
Gujarat University had on Sunday said Modi had an MA degree and had scored 62.3 per cent as an external student of the varsity.
The party leaders including Ashutosh, Raghav Chadha and Ashish Khetan had gone to DU this afternoon with an authorisation letter from the CM to collect the information.
After nearly an hour-long meeting with DU Registrar Tarun Das and Chief Public Information Officer Meenakshi Sahay, the leaders claimed that the administration refused to share any details and asked them to approach Prime Minister's Office instead.
Kejriwal took to Twitter alleging that PM's degree was "forged" and that is why DU was refusing to share it.
"DU refuses to show records of PM's degree. Why? My info- he did not do BA from DU. No records in DU. Degree published by some papers forged," he said in a series of tweets.
"No records in DU related to his enrolment, his degree, his marksheets and convocation.Why is DU refusing info abt PM's degree? Becoz he does not have it," the Chief Minister added.
After the meeting, Khetan told reporters, "We met the Registrar and sought information about PM's degree but the administration refused to share any details. Investigations have revealed that his degree is fake, he never enrolled here, gave any exam or got any graduation degree from here and if there wasn't a BA degree, there is no possibility of him having a valid MA degree".
"Since past two years, DU has not been able to find information about his degree or admission and despite the CIC order they asked us to approach PMO if we wanted to see his degree," he added.
DU Vice Chancellor told PTI, "The university's department dealing with RTIs is looking into the issue and will reply accordingly."
The CIC, acting on a letter from Kejriwal, had last Friday asked the Delhi University and Gujarat University to "make best possible search for the information regarding degrees in the name of Mr Narendra Damodardas Modi in the year 1978 (Graduation in DU) and 1983 (Post Graduation in GU) and provide it to the appellant Mr Kejriwal as soon as possible".
The genesis of the case is in two previous CIC orders
and a scathing letter from Kejriwal to Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu where he demanded that while he was ready to share information sought by RTI applicants, the CIC must also order disclosure of educational qualifications of the Prime Minister.
Kejriwal also promptly shared a copy of an RTI response on his engineering degree from IIT-Kharagpur, saying the authorities could immediately provide it as "I have a degree from there".
