Himachal Pradesh High Court
Jasveer Kaur vs . Union Of India & Ors. A/W on 10 May, 2023
Bench: Tarlok Singh Chauhan, Virender Singh
Jasveer Kaur vs. Union of India & Ors. a/w .
connected matters CWP No. 7944 of 2021 a/w CWP No. 5243 of 2021 & CWP No. 7947 of 2021 10.05.2023 Present: Mr. Ravi Tanta, Advocate, for the petitioner.
Mr. Nand Lal Thakur, Senior Panel Counsel, for respondent No. 1.
Mr. I.N. Mehta, Senior Additional Advocate General with Mr. Ramakant Sharma, Additional Advocate General, Ms. Priyanka Chauhan, Mr. Arsh Rattan and Mr. Jagdeep Singh Guleria, Deputy Advocates General and Mr. Rajat Chauhan, Law Officer, for the respondents-State.
On 08.03.2022, this Court passed the following orders:
"After hearing the matter pre lunch session, we called upon the presence of Director, Higher Education, to the Government of Himachal Pradesh, and in compliance thereto, Dr. Harish Kumar, Joint Director of Higher Education, is present in person.
The Court has apprised the Joint Director about the serious concern, which it has, with regard to the functioning of the respondents, as also the functioning of Union of India, whereby rights of the petitioners, who are none other than the students belonging to OBC, SC and ST, for release of the scholarships, are defeated on hyper-technical grounds.
One of the grounds for rejecting the claim of the petitioners, as also similarly situate students is that they have not submitted their documents online within stipulated period.
One really wonders, how the students could have been expected to submit the documents online when even as per the letter issued on 16th March, 2021, the Director of Higher Education itself informed the private universities/institutions inside/outside the State of Himachal Pradesh that no demand would be considered after 31st March, 2021 and the portal shall be closed thereafter.
That apart, why no steps have been taken by the respondents for permitting the students to ::: Downloaded on - 15/05/2023 20:30:25 :::CIS submit their documents offline or physically through .
post is not at all forthcoming.
Every litigation cannot be taken adversely, more especially, the litigation of the instant kind, where the students are bound to approach the Court for release of their scholarship. We hope and trust that better sense would prevail upon the officers of the Central Government and State Government, if entire aspect of the case is seen by human heart rather than with the hawkeye.
In the given facts and circumstances, we deem it proper to direct the Director of Higher Education and under Secretary of respondent No. 1 to have a joint meeting, may be on the virtual platform, latest by 10th March, 2022 at 11:00 A.M. and resolve the issue and report compliance before the next date of hearing.
List on 15th March, 2022. Personal presence of Joint Director, Higher Education, is dispensed with."
Thereafter, it was repeatedly submitted that out of 1342 students 1315 students have been pushed by the PFMS and Scholarship amounts of these students have been released but so far as remaining 27 students including Tanvi Rehal are concerned, their cases were been verified and the payment could not be released due to mismatch of their bank account details and it is only after updating the bank account details by the students that the due amount would be released latest by 22nd of December, 2022. It was pointed out that now out of 27 students only 6 students have matched the bank account number and remaining 21 students are still required to match their account numbers.
Confronted with this, learned counsel for the petitioner states that it is surprising that the scholarship which was prescribed over four years, out of the scholarship amount which is spread over the period of four years, the ::: Downloaded on - 15/05/2023 20:30:25 :::CIS scholarship with respect to the two years have been released .
in favour of the students on the same very accounts which are Aadhar linked. It is not understandable how the respondents still claim that there is mismatch in the accounts.
We ourselves are also astonished with regard to the stand taken by the respondent. After all, the accounts invariably have the Aadhar linkage. What exactly is the mismatch found in the account numbers is otherwise not forthcoming. Therefore, let the relevant records pertaining to 21 students be produced on the next date of hearing by an officer well conversant with the facts of the case not below the rank of Joint Director (Higher Education) to the Government of H.P. List on 17.05.2023 (Tarlok Singh Chauhan) Acting Chief Justice (Virender Singh) Judge 10th May, 2023 (pathania) ::: Downloaded on - 15/05/2023 20:30:25 :::CIS