High Court directs bank to give education loan to Dalit student

 “A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well-being of the people.”Babasheb Dr.B.R.Ambedkar
 The very purpose of education loan gets defeated if the Model Educational Loan Scheme of Indian Association of Banks sanctioning loans only to meritorious students is followed, the Madras High Court has observed.



“If such an attitude was there even Dr. Ambedkar could not have gone for higher education,” Justice D. Hariparanthaman said while directing a branch of State Bank of Travancore (SBT) in Mogappair to sanction education loan to an engineering college student belonging to Dalit community. The Judge said Dr. Ambedkar had scored only 287 marks out of 750 in the matric examinations, but the King of Baroda was kind enough to extend financial assistance to him.


The Judge was passing orders on a petition from S. Maran, studying BE Computer Science in an engineering college in Poonamallee. He was the first person in his family to enter college and paid the fee for first year with great difficulty since he was not aware of the financial assistance offered by nationalised banks.


In the second year, he applied for educational loan under Gyan Jyothi Educational Scheme. Since there was no response from the bank, he paid fee for second year course and approached the court for a direction to the bank to sanction education loan. Besides citing the Model Educational Loan Scheme, the bank also submitted that the circular issued by the head of the SBT, on June 3, 2008, prescribing 45 per cent marks for SC/ST students.


Justice Hariparanthaman rejected the argument of the bank, saying that if it was accepted, except general category students, other students belonging to SC/ST and Most Backward Classes (MBC) categories admitted to BE courses with less than 45 per cent marks in the State would not be able to get the loan.


Recalling the State government's decision to prescribe 35 per cent marks for admission to SC/ST students, he said the objective of the prescription was to achieve the constitutional goal set out in Article 46. “Now the Centre has framed a scheme to provide financial assistance to the weaker sections of the society for education. It is unfortunate that the bank is denying the same citing one reason or the other,” he said.


Besides directing the bank to sanction loan in four weeks, the Judge also wanted the bank to release for the third and fourth year. The college should reimburse the fee after loan for the second year fee was received.
Source: The Hindu