The court emphasized the importance of education as a national wealth and highlighted the constitutional provisions under Article 46 and Article 41, which promote the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the society and secure the right to work and education for the needy and deserving.

Heard both sides.

2. By consent of both sides, the main Writ Petition itself is taken up for final disposal.

3. No counter is filed on behalf of the Respondents.

4. According to the Petitioner, she had completed S.S.L.C at TVS Higher Secondary School, Madurai and scored 480 marks. Subsequently, she had completed +2 examination in the year March 2014 and she secured 1058 marks. She also attended the counselling and secured admission to Bachelor of Engineering(Electrical and Electronics Engineering) during the year 2014 at K.L.N.College of Information and Technology, Madurai. The said college is recognized by the Anna University, Chennai.

5. The grievance of the Petitioner is that her family is facing economic crisis and she applied for educational loan with the Respondent/Bank. In fact, the Respondent/Bank directed her parents to open a new account for pursuing the educational loan at their end. In reality, her father opened a new account on 11.11.2014 and the Account No. is 06122191014612. Likewise, her mother also opened a new account and the Account No. is 06122191014605. Later, the Respondent/Bank received her application and assured to provide educational loan amount of Rs.4 lakhs.

6. The real grievance of the Petitioner is that after receiving the application, the Respondent/Bank refused to process the application for sanctioning the loan amount. In the meanwhile, her parents pledged their gold ornaments and obtained loan with exorbitant interest and paid the first year college fee and transport fee for her studies. Thereafter, she sent a representation on 16.09.2015 to the Respondent/Bank and requested to sanction the educational loan amount for pursuing education at Engineering College. Thereafter, on 1.7.2016, she and her parents requested in person for educational loan of Rs.2 lakhs for completing the remaining two years. Subsequently on 4.7.2016 she sent a representation, which was acknowledged by the Respondent/Bank on 5.7.2016. Further, the Respondent/Bank had not considered her representations.

7. At this stage, the Learned Counsel for the Petitioner submits that the Government has to provide assistance financially to promote poor students and Right to Education is one of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India. Inasmuch as the representations of the Petitioner have not met with any positive response in the hands of the Respondent/Bank, the Petitioner has filed the present Writ Petition for the relief as stated supra.

8. At this stage, the Learned Counsel for the Respondent/Bank brings it to the notice of this Court that on 26.05.2015, a message was sent to all Bank Branches in Madurai City on the subject of Educational Loans whereby and where-under it is mentioned as follows:

There is no service area concept for education loans as per RBI guidelines. However, in the earlier years for easy approach of students/parents, as per the decision taken in the Bankers Meeting (DLRC), wards were allocated to each Bank Branch.

Now in Madurai City there are 100 wards with around 217 Bank Branches. Many wards have more than one Bank Branches. Many Banks have shifted their Branches in main locality even though the Branch license is for different area. In the past year our office received more complaints through District Collectorate. CM Cell and also directly from parents regarding non sanction of/delay in sanctioning education loans. Few parents gone to Ombudsman, RBI and few filed Writ Petition in High Court -Madurai Bench. We also observed from the quarterly reports submitted by Bankers that some of the Bankers did not consider education loan during last year.

As the admission process to colleges has been started, in the DCC Meeting the matter has been discussed and following decision have been made:

1. All Banks other than specialised branches like SME Branch in the ward (Private/Nationalized) should