The Allahabad High Court has allowed a petition saying scholarship to an eligible candidate could not be denied on the ground that the scheme/ budget of the specific year had lapsed.
A single-judge bench of Justice Manish Kumar passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Pulast Tiwari.
The petition has been filed with the following main reliefs:-
“i) issue an appropriate writ, order or direction to the respondent no. 2 to consider the application dated 06.02.2024 and to rectify the technical mistake being done on the part of respondent no 2 and provide the scholarship to the petitioner and let the petitioner avail the benefit of the UP Scholarship Scheme 2023-24 for the Post Matric Scholarship other than intermediate.
ii) issue an appropriate writ, order or direction to respondent no 2 to let the petitioner avail the benefit of the U.P Scholarship Scheme 2023-24 for the Post Matric Scholarship other than intermediate.”
Counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the petitioner is eligible for getting the benefit of the UP Scholarship Scheme 2023-24 for the Post Matric Scholarship thus, he made an application for grant of scholarship.
It is further submitted that the scholarship was not being granted to the petitioner and on being inquired, it was found that respondent no 4-Arpita has been granted the scholarship, who used the roll number of High School of the petitioner in her application.
It is also submitted that the petitioner has submitted the application was made within time and there is no fault on the part of the petitioner so he could not be deprived of grant of scholarship under the scheme.
On the other hand, the Standing Counsel on the basis of counter affidavit has submitted that the petitioner is eligible and entitled for the grant of scholarship and inadvertently the scholarship form of the respondent no 4 was cleared wherein roll number of the High School of the petitioner has been mentioned.
It is further submitted that now the difficulty before the authorities is that the financial year has come to an end on 31.03.2024 and the budget has lapsed so the scholarship could not be granted to the petitioner according to the Rules.
Diptiman Singh, counsel for the University has submitted that State authorities are responsible for deprivation of scholarship to the petitioner and University has no role in the same and the same could also be seen from the order of the Court dated 09.08.2024.
Replying the aforesaid submission submitted by the Standing Counsel regarding the lapse of budget after the end of the financial year, the counsel for the petitioner has submitted that on the ground that due to lapse of budget or finance, the eligible candidate can not be denied for scholarship and in support of his submission, counsel for the petitioner has relied upon the judgment of the court dated 27.09.2022 passed in Writ (Yaqoob Alam and others Vs State of U.P and anothers).
The Court observed that,
After hearing counsel for the parties and going through the record of the case and the judgment in the case of the Yaqoob Alam (supra), it is found that the Court has passed the judgment in the case of Yaqoob Alam (supra) while placing reliance upon the judgment in the case of Special Appeal Defective (State of U.P and others Vs Swami Vivekanand Law College B.K.T Lucknow) dated 23.02.2015. Reliance has also been placed upon the case of Aditya Tiwari and another Vs the State of U.P and others reported in 2020 (38) LCD 2502 wherein this Court has held that scholarship to an eligible candidate could not be denied on the ground that the scheme/ budget of the specific year has lapsed.
“The petitioner could not be denied the benefit of scholarship as admitted by the State respondents as he comes within the ambit of scheme of scholarship and just because of the end of the financial year, he could not be denied the benefit of the said scheme, as per the law laid down by the Court in the case of Yaqoob Alam (supra),” the Court further observed while allowing the petition.
The Court directed respondent no 2 to ensure that the admissible scholarship be paid to the petitioner under the Scheme within a period of three months from the date of production of certified copy of the order.