Cuttack: The Mukhyamantri Medhabruti Puraskar or the Chief Minister's Merit Scholarship for High School Certificate (HSC) examination graduates has come under judicial scrutiny following allegations of discriminatory guidelines for distribution of the reward.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik had announced the scheme on Children's Day on November 14, 2017. Under the scheme, students performing well in matriculation examination were to get a cash prize of Rs 5,000.

The government planned to provide the annual scholarship to a total of 40,000 students across the state. Accordingly, on June 7, the school and mass education department issued a notification with guidelines for distribution of the scholarship.

One of the provisions in the guidelines specified that unaided and recognised educational institutions shall get a maximum of 20 per cent of the scholarships while the remaining 80 per cent shall be given to aided and government educational institutions.

Seventeen students who had passed the HSC examination in 2018 from unaided and recognised schools in Banapur Notified Council Area in Khurda district filed a petition challenging the allotment pattern for distribution of the scholarship.

The petition came up on Tuesday. After a preliminary hearing, the single-judge bench of Justice A.K. Rath posted the matter to after two weeks for hearing along with the reply of the government.

Justice Rath accordingly issued notices to the secretary of school and mass education department to file a response within two weeks.

The petitioner students have sought quashing of the provision in the guideline alleging that it was "arbitrary, illegal, unfair, discriminatory and unreasonable, and a case of total non-application of mind".

The grievance of the petitioner students centred round the contention that students of the aided and government educational institutions securing less marks than them had already been selected to get the scholarship.

They cited the distribution of scholarship among the schools in Banpur NAC area. While four students of unaided recognised schools had been selected, 16 students were selected from aided government schools.