Smriti Irani's 1996 BA documents yet to be found: DU to court

New Delhi, May 3: The Delhi University today told a court here that the documents pertaining to Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani's BA course in 1996, as purportedly mentioned by her in an affidavit filed during 2004 Lok Sabha elections, are yet to be found.

The university's response came in pursuance to court's earlier order summoning documents from its School of Open Learning department on the allegation that in her affidavit for April 2004 polls, Irani had claimed that she completed her BA in 1996.

"1996 documents related to her (Irani) BA are yet to be found," Assistant Registrar of School of Open Learning, Delhi University (DU), O P Tanwar, told Metropolitan Magistrate Harvinder Singh.

Tanwar also brought some documents related to Irani's education, including admission form for B.Com (H) of 1993-94 and its result and further her enrollment cum admission form in BA (H) Political Science first year for 2013-14. He said that Irani's class 12th documents, submitted with the admission form of B.Com (H) course were yet to be found.

He, however, added that "verification must have been done before the admission."

The court also asked SDM of north Delhi to bring documents filed by Irani with the affidavit for contesting 2004 polls from Chandni Chowk constituency here and fixed the matter for further hearing on June 6.

The court had earlier directed the Election Commission and DU to bring the documents related to educational qualification of Irani on a complaint filed against her for allegedly giving false information in affidavits to the poll panel.

The court had on November 20 last year allowed the plea of the complainant Ahmer Khan, a freelance writer, seeking a direction to the officials of EC and DU to bring records of Irani's educational qualification after he said he was unable to place them before the court.

During the hearing, Vandita Srivastava, SDM of Gauriganj in Amethi, filed original and certified copies of documents filed by Irani during Lok Sabha elections 2014 and said "as per record, no document for(Irani's) educational qualification was collected with nomination form".

PTI