Delhi High Court
Mohammed Ilyas Abha M A vs Union Of India And Anr. on 12 November, 2018
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*IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
Date of decision: 12th November, 2018
+ W.P.(C) 3063/2018
MOHAMMED ILYAS ABHA M A ..... Petitioner
Through: Mr. Usman Khan, Adv.
versus
UNION OF INDIA AND ANR. ..... Respondents
Through: Mr. Anil Soni, CGSC with
Mr.Abhinav Tyagi, Adv. for R-1.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE C.HARI SHANKAR
% J U D G M E N T (ORAL)
1. The petitioner, who is pursuing his Post Graduate Diploma in
Management at the Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak, registered
for the Scholarship Programme of the Ministry of Minority Affairs,
known as the Merit-cum-Means Scholarship Programme.
2. This scholarship programme avowedly is intended for the
educational empowerment of six notified Minority Communities i.e.
Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi. Under the said
Scheme, scholarship is awarded to students pursuing technical and
professional courses at under graduate and post graduate levels.
3. For the purposes of the present petition, it is not necessary to
enter into the specifics of the grants under the said Scheme.
W.P.(C) 3063/2018 Page 1 of 4
4. Suffice it to state that it is accepted, in the counter affidavit of
the respondent, that the IIM, Rohtak is one of the 85 listed institutes
eligible for grant to the abovementioned scholarship.
5. It is asserted, in the writ petition, that though the Nodal Officer
of the respondent, in Kerala (from where the petitioner hails)
communicated, vide email dated 9th August, 2017, to the respondent,
recommending the case of the petitioner for award of the above
mentioned scholarship, stating him to be a meritorious student, the
respondent replied, stating that the petitioner's request had been
rejected on the ground that the course of the petitioner was not on the
list of eligible courses for grant of the abovementioned scholarship.
6. It is admitted, in the counter affidavit of the respondent that this
ground, on which the petitioner's request was rejected, was erroneous
and that, on verification, the petitioner was treated as a "provisional
eligible applicant", subject to verification of his Bank account, which
was one of the pre-requisites for disbursement of scholarship under the
said Scheme.
7. Subsequently, it appears, the National Scholarship Portal (NSP),
which administers the Scheme, sent the Bank details, submitted by the
petitioner, to the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) for
validation and conformation, so that the scholarship amount could be
paid into the designated Bank account of the petitioner.
W.P.(C) 3063/2018 Page 2 of 4
8. Be it noted that, during the course of the proceedings in this
Court, a submission was advanced, by the respondent, on 17th April,
2018, that the petitioner could not be granted scholarship as he had not
qualified for such grant on merit, the last candidate who had been
granted scholarship having obtained 74%, whereas the petitioner had
obtained only 61.63%. This contention was denied by learned counsel
for the petitioner, who had submitted that the scholarship was not on
merit basis that the available candidates were less than the eligible
candidates.
9. Now, the counter-affidavit filed by the respondent discloses
that, in fact, the request, of the petitioner, for grant of scholarship, was
not rejected on the ground of his merit, but because, while entering his
"IFSC Code", for payment of the scholarship amount, the petitioner
had entered "SBTROOOO201" instead of "SBTR0000201", i.e., in
respect of four "0s" he had entered "Os". In other words, instead of
the numeral "0", the petitioner had entered the capital letter "O".
10. These appear to be among the hiccups of digitalization, which,
hopefully, would be ironed out with the passage of time.
11. Suffice it to state that the above ground can hardly constitute a
basis to deny the benefit of scholarship to the petitioner. The counter
affidavit makes it clear that denial of scholarship was only on account
of his entering the IFSC Code of the Bank and not on merit.
W.P.(C) 3063/2018 Page 3 of 4
12. Accordingly, the amount of scholarship, to which the petitioner
is otherwise entitled, would be paid into his Bank account bearing the
IFSC Code "SBTR0000201". The respondent is directed to do the
needful within a period of two weeks.
13. The writ petition stands allowed in the above terms. There shall
be no order as to costs.
C. HARI SHANKAR, J.
NOVEMBER 12, 2018
dsn
