THE BOMBAY High Court has issued notices to the union and state ministries for Minority Affairs to explain why at least 4 lakh students from religious minorities entitled for pre-matric scholarships were left out in 2015-16.

The Aurangabad bench of the High Court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by Latur corporator Rahul Maknikar and activist Razaullah Khan. Justice RM Borde and Justice Sangitrao Patil gave the respondents, including the state Minority Development department and Education and Sports department, four weeks to respond.

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Khan had filed the PIL after a response to a Right to Information (RTI) plea showed that Maharashtra had received only 3,30,776 applications for 2015-16, even as 7,17,896 students were eligible for renewal going by the previous year’s numbers. The RTI response from the Minority and Adult Education Department (MAE), reported by The Indian Express in September, showed that more than 53 per cent had not applied for renewal.

MAE Director Nandan Nangare said that number was less because fewer students had applied, but Khan contended that students had not been registered because of the failure of the application process.

Earlier, the application process was online and the students had to enter their details into the National Scholarship Portal. However, owing to limited internet accessibility in rural areas, the process was made available offline last year. The state’s plan to make the process offline was supposed to benefit students as the details could now be filled in excel sheets at the school.

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