Delhi High Court has directed the Centre to pay within eight weeks Rs 50,000 as “costs” to a Delhi University student for denying him the third instalment of an annual scholarship offered to him by the department of science and technology under its INSPIRE scheme.

The court also ordered the Centre to release the third instalment of Rs 60,000 to the student along with an interest of 6 per cent per annum.

The department, functioning under the ministry of science and technology, had offered the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) scholarship to the student in January 2017. To be eligible for it, students ought to be in the top 1 per cent of their respective boards in Class XII. In this case, the student, who belonged to an economically weaker section, was disbursed the scholarship amount for the first two years but for the third year, his scholarship was withheld.

The Centre claimed that to remain eligible under the scheme, the student’s CGPA should be at least 6.0 in the core subjects.

The court rejected the Centre’s stand and observed that the guidelines left no doubt that the requirement of 6.0 CGPA was in the aggregate and not in the core subjects. The transcripts of the student show that his CGPA for the first and second semesters was 7.45 and 6.32 for the third and fourth semesters, which was above the required threshold, it added.

“There is no mention in the Post Offer Implementation Guidelines for Scholars or in the INSPIRE Scheme that 6.0 CGPA is being required in the core subjects. Thus, the rejection/non-grant of scholarship to the petitioner (the student) is completely untenable,” the court said.

Justice Prathiba M. Singh said the student had to discontinue his studies after BSc due to the Centre’s decision.