A fine of Rs 25,000 is pocket change for a national party. It will also be less than a senior advocate might ask for in exchange for a single appearance. But the Gujarat High Court's verdict on Tuesday to not reduce the fine on Arvind Kejriwal is not just monetary. It marks the end of another battle about the boundaries of the Right to Information Act which started as a simple transparency request and has since been a long-term test of the limits of the Act when the subject is the Prime Minister.

The division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice DN Ray overruled the AAP convenor's appeal and did not find any fault with the single judge order that was sought to be set aside. On the facts and circumstances of the case, the bench said it could not see any fault in the previous judgment and did not make any order on costs. The court's verdict was reserved on September 24, and was issued in quick succession after the hearing.

This trail dates back 10 years. On April 2016, Central Information Commission (CIC) issued a directive to Gujarat University to provide copies of records of Narendra Modi's degrees to Kejriwal. Kejriwal had written to the commission on Tuesday outlining that he had no objection to the government's records on him being published, citing the government's information on the Prime Minister's qualifications, which was also obtained by the reports, should be made public.

The university went to the High Court, which stayed the direction. Justice Biren Vaishnav allowed the appeal of the university, set aside the order of the commission and imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on the university, which has to be paid to the Gujarat State Legal Services Authority, in March 2023. The judge also slammed the commission for its “judicial activism”.

Kejriwal's team was battling on two fronts. In November 2023, his review petition was denied after he said the university's degree, which it said was online, was not actually available on its web page. His counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi at appeal challenged the rationale behind this penalty. The case was submitted before the court was that the only objection against Kejriwal was that he was "persisting" despite the degree being available on the website. Also, Singhvi contended that Kejriwal did not have the tenacity to go the whole distance. But on the other side, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had sought costs to be imposed to prevent misuse of the RTI law.

The actual battle is that exchange. Public money and public power should be exposed, not given to the politics of show, the law's supporters say. In that interpretation, if a request is recurring once the answer is published, it's harassment, disguised as accountability, and a small penalty is a fair punishment. The critics of the ruling have a different perspective.

The interpretation is that a citizen who requests a public figure's credentials from a public authority is engaging in what the statute invites him to do, and when the public authority issues a cost order however mundane it signals to the next person asking for the credentials that the price of asking may increase in the future. Both readings are correct. What they have a problem with is that the case lands at the intersection of the two and a costs order is a blunt instrument.

The politics have never been far behind. The order in 2023 raised his suspicions, Kejriwal asked whether India needed an educated Prime Minister. He also surmised that the university was either arrogant or untrue when it was slow to accept the degree. The BJP IT cell chief replied that the court has dismissed "frivolous petition" against the Prime Minister's degree. The deal ended up costing Kejriwal much more than Rs 25,000.

Gujarat University had initiated a criminal defamation case against him and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh, and a magistrate's court summoned both the politicians. In February 2024, the High Court denied the quashing of those summons and Singh challenged them in the Supreme Court that same month, but was denied relief. The High Court has also recently denied their bail application for separate trials. The defamation case is still live and Tuesday's ruling is likely not to be the final hearing on the matter.

There has also been a change in the broader political landscape. Kejriwal has been removed as chief minister. He resigned in September, 2024 after being charged with corruption and Rekha Gupta of the BJP inherited Delhi after the 2025 assembly elections. Now, a leader who lacks a secure base in his own country has fewer means of attack and a lawsuit over how he's educated, which used to be a good headline, seems an exercise best forgotten. The Supreme Court challenge will be watched to see whether Kejriwal is going to take this defeat. He could. With the consistency of all the benches ruling so far, the chances of success seem tenuous.

There is a worldly dimension to be said out loud. In more developed democracies the rights of freedom of information struggle with this question on a regular basis how much of a leader's personal record is a public one and when is it an abuse of process to ask too much? In the UK and Canada, for example, courts have many times distinguished between requests undertaken “for the public interest” and those considered “vexatious.” India has never had a settled test and this case is a testament to the fact that it is necessary. Otherwise, it just depends on the bench, the applicant and the political climate.

What the ruling fails to address is the question that began it all. The degree is listed on the university's website, says the university. Kejriwal's camp claimed it was not available in its camp. A simple dispute that could have been settled years ago with an easily verifiable document and a public link. On the contrary, it sparked a decade of hearings, a defamation trial, and a political slogan.