Where did Rs 80,00 scholarship go: Uttarakhand HC asks Centre

NAINITAL

: The

Uttarakhand

High Court on Wednesday asked the Union ministry of science and technology to submit its reply in the case related to a student

Pooja Joshi

, who claimed that despite being eligible for a ministry scholarship of Rs 80,000, she was deprived of it after two years, citing change in eligibility criteria.

Providing details of the case, DK Joshi, the girl’s advocate, told TOI, "Pooja had secured 76 per cent marks in the intermediate examination conducted by the

Uttarakhand School Education Board

. As per the scheme ‘Scholarship For Higher Education’, a component of the ‘Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (SHE-INSPIRE) project conducted by the central government, she was eligible for the Rs 80,000 per year scholarship for a period of five years as she had secured a place among the top one per cent of the school board in the class XII exams."

He added that the girl belongs to a poor family and her father is phycially challenged. "The scholarship amount would have come as a big boost for her and her family,” he said.

Speaking to TOI, Pooja claimed that the Uttarakhand government had also issued a certificate of merit to enable her to apply for the scholarship scheme.

"In September 2014, I applied online for the scheme following all the prescribed guidelines. I was hopeful that soon I would start receiving the amount. But after waiting for a long time, when I sent a mail to the ministry, I was told that my scholarship application had been rejected by the screening committee on account of repositioning of cut off marks for Uttarakhand."

"Is this the way how ‘Beti Padhao’ campaign is run by the central government?" she asked.

The single bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia which heard the case directed the central government to respond on the matter within three weeks’ time.