Notice on plea to resume full scholarship to SC/ST students

The first bench, comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose, before whom the plea came up highlighting the aspect that failure of the Centre to provide funds has led to the state slashing the scholarship meant for SC/ST students by one-third, directed the government counsel to get instructions and posted the matter for further hearing to February 2.

The petitioner D Ashok Kumar had contended that owing to poor higher education ratio among SC/ST members, the state government in 2012 introduced scholarship for such students, whose parents earned less than Rs 2 lakh per year. The tuition fees for courses in self-financing institutions were also covered under the scheme. In fact, after the scheme’s introduction, the engineering students from SC/ST communities increased from 8,000 to 35,000 with a gradual increase in the numbers. 

While so, the government on August 11, 2017, passed an order cutting down the scholarships. As per the new scheme, students who joined courses under management quota and self-financing category can get scholarship equal to the fee charged under government quota and not the actual fee charged under self-financing stream. 

“For example, while the fee fixed for engineering course under self-financing stream for the academic year 201718 is Rs 85,000, the students would get only Rs 50,000 as scholarship, while the rest must be borne by the students themselves,” advocate S Sathia Chandran appearing for the petitioner said. 

Quoting a media report that over 1.4 lakh students have been affected owing to the recent GO slashing the scholarships, the petitioner wanted the court to direct the Centre to immediately release Rs 1,765.62 crore to the SC students and Rs 31.2 crore to ST students enabling them to pursue their higher education and also direct the respective state authorities to take effective steps to obtain the funds.