It takes three years for a regular student to obtain a graduation degree, but for Rakesh Poonia it has been an 18-year-long wait to get his Bachelor of Commerce certificate after he cleared his exams in 1991.
The 39-year-old resident of Mumbai, who passed his B.Com exam from a college in Rajasthan, has finally got the degree, thanks to the Right to Information Act.
A student of S.S. Jain Subodh Night College under the University of Rajasthan, Mr. Poonia got his mark sheet in the year 1991 but was not issued the bachelor’s degree.
After waiting for over a year, he approached the college authorities which replied that degrees of 1991 batch were yet to be issued.
He then went to the University office which too gave the same reply. Mr. Poonia received the standard reply each time he approached the college and the University administration.
This continued for 17 long years until he applied for Masters in Business Administration in Pondicherry University in 2006.
“The Pondicherry University had cautioned me that they would not give me an MBA degree if I failed to produce my B.Com degree certificate,” he said.
A troubled Mr. Poonia then wrote to the then Governor of Rajasthan Pratibha Patil, who was also the Vice Chancellor of the University.
“I then filed an RTI plea with the University of Rajasthan in 2008. In 2009 November, when the case finally reached the State Information Commission office, I got the bachelor’s degree,” he said.
