STATE OF HARYANA Vs. VISHAL AGGARWAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) State of Haryana has come up in appeal against the order dated 19th April, 1996 passed by District Forum, Yamuna Nagar at Jagadhri, whereby complaint of a student-Mr. Vishal Aggarwal has been allowed and the State of Haryana has been directed to release the scholarship to the student in view of his meritorious performance in 10+2 examination held by the Board of School Education, Haryana. According to the complainant, he was placed in the merit list by the Board of School Education, Haryana in 10 + 2 examination held in March, 1993. On the basis of that performance, he was granted Silver Jubilee Scholarship on 4th March, 1994. However, the grant was cancelled unilaterally on the ground that the colleagues of the complainant's father, who were employees of the State Bank of India had reimbursed his admission and tuition fee according to their policy, out of the Staff Welfare Fund. This reimbursement by the State Bank of India out of Staff Welfare Fund was treated as an additional scholarship / stipend / financial assistance for the cancellation of the scholarship granted by the State. The learned District Forum finding merit in the complaint repelled the plea taken by the State Government and allowed the complaint by granting the release of the scholarship to the complainant.

(2.) In the appeal before us, it has been vehemently contended by Mr- Gobind Dhanda, Assistant Advocate General for the appellant, that in fact the complaint was not maintainable under the Consumer Protection Act and secondly the reimbursement of the admission and tuition fee by the State Bank of India out of the Staff Welfare Fund to be complainant was certainly a scholarship, which disentitled the complainant from claiming the scholarship in dispute. After hearing the learned Counsel for the parties, we are of the considered view that once it has been established that the complainant was a meritorious student and had been awarded scholarship strictly on the basis of his merit and being the son of the poor employee of the Bank and that his colleagues had reimbursed his admission and tuition fee, etc. the Welfare State should not have cancelled the scholarship already awarded to the complainant. Instead of granting incentive to the meritorious students such actions are bound to kill their initiative and zeal for further studies. In the circumstances of the case, we do not find it a fit case to exercise our appellate jurisdiction to interfere with the discretion exercised by the learned District Forum. Consequently, the appeal is dismissed with no order as to costs.