Ahmedabad :
A division bench of the Gujarat high court on Wednesday directed the state government to immediately implement the Centre’s scheme of pre-matriculation scholarship for students belonging to five religious minorities.
The direction came after a five-judge bench concluded that the Centre’s scheme was valid. With this order, those students whose family income is below Rs 1 lakh will get benefit. As per the state government’s estimate, there are some six lakh students from Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Parsi and Buddhist communities that will be eligible for the scholarship. However, those students that will get the Centre’s scholarship will cease to be beneficiaries of state’s other scholarship schemes.
The bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala refused to stay HC decision that the state government was legally bound to pay scholarship amount, which came to nearly Rs 850 per annum, to students as per the 2008 Union government scheme. The state government intends to move the Supreme Court in this regard as early as possible, and for that it demanded a certificate from the court to file leave for appeal petition in the apex court.
The state government was not giving scholarships to students of standard I to XI on the ground that it was based on religious grounds and therefore unconstitutional, and a secular state cannot discriminate against students of other communities. The state government was supposed to contribute 25% to the funds allocated by the Centre for this pre-matric scholarship scheme.
However, the state government duly implemented a post-matric scholarship scheme aimed at students of the five minorities. In this scheme, the Centre bears 100% expenditure.
The issue reached HC after TOI reported that the Narendra Modi government was denying the benefits to students. Advocate Hashim Qureshi filed a PIL, which was rejected by the division bench. However, its findings were in contradiction with a 2009 order passed by another division bench. Hence the issue was referred to a five-judge bench, which concluded that the scheme was legal and the state had to implement it.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Ahmedabad / by TNN / February 21st, 2013