india

Updated: Oct 18, 2019 22:22 IST

The Himachal Pradesh high court on Friday issued notice to state’s Director of Higher Education and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the illegal disbursement of post-matric scholarship and directed them to file the status report and reply within two weeks.

A division bench comprising the chief justice L Narayana Swamy and justice Dharam Chand Chaudhary passed these orders on a writ petition filed by Shyam Lal, resident of Bilaspur district.

The petitioner has alleged that state project officer Shakti Bhushan, who was appointed by the education department to inquire into the misappropriation and misapplication of the scholarships under centrally-sponsored Post Matric Scholarships Scheme for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students, had lodged an FIR on November 10 last year after conducting an inquiry under the directions of secretary (education).

The petitioner alleged that the inquiry report revealed that the huge sum of scholarship money was misappropriated and apart from the educational institutions within the state, scores of other educational institutions stationed in other states were also involved in the ‘scam’. Consequently, the matter was handed over to the CBI for proper and thorough investigation by the state.

The petitioner said he was “alarmed and concerned” with the CBI’s approach as it was not investigating all the erring institutions. It has investigated only 22 out of over 2,772 institutions that were named in the preliminary investigation report of Bhushan.

The petitioner has prayed to direct the CBI to investigate all institutions named by Bhushan and thereafter bring such investigations to the logical conclusion by filing criminal cases against all the erring institutions named in the list without any exception.

The court listed the matter for next hearing on November 14.