Court No. - 4

Case :- WRIT - C No. - 3454 of 2016

Petitioner :- Mohan Kumar Mishra

Respondent :- State Bank Of India And Another

Counsel for Petitioner :- Udai Shanker Mishra,Shahroze Khan,Shailesh

Mani Tripathi

Counsel for Respondent :- Satish Chaturvedi,M.K. Srivastava,Manoj

Kumar Srivastava,S.C.

Hon'ble Bala Krishna Narayana,J.

Hon'ble Prakash Padia,J.

Learned counsel for the petitioner is permitted to correct the

description of respondent no.1 during the course of the day.

Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri M.K.

Srivastava, learned counsel for the respondents.

The instant writ petition has been filed by the petitioner with

the following prayers :-

"(A) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari

to quash the impugned letter/order dated 24.11.2015 passed by

the Branch Manager State Bank of India Berdad, Gorakhpur,

(B) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus

commanding the respondent Bank to sanction the loan

according to the Government of India scheme known as Prime

Minister's Employment Generation Programme by following

the direction of the Reserve Bank of India.

(C) Issue any suitable writ order or direction which this

Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper under the facts and

circumstances of the case.

(D) Award the cost of the petition in favour of the petitioner."

It is contended by learned counsel for the petitioner that the

petitioner has applied online before the District Industries

Centres (DICs) for grant of loan under the Prime Minister's

Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) for

packing/fixing and other wooden products before respondent

no.1 on 2nd October, 2015. He next contended that by the

impugned order dated 24.11.2015, respondent no.1 has directed

that the petitioner's application should have been forwarded

through the DICs (hereinafter referred to as "PMEGP")

although the scheme does not contain any such stipulations. He

further invited our attention to Clause (11) of PMEGP and

submitted that the aforesaid clause clearly provides that

sponsoring of project by any agency is not mandatory and the

beneficiaries can directly approach a Bank/Financial institution

alongwith his/her project proposal or it can be sponsored by

KVIC/KVIBs/DIC/Panchayat Karyalayas etc. However, the

applications received directly by the Banks will be referred to

the Task Force for its consideration. He lastly submitted that in

view of the provisions of Clause 14 of the Scheme, respondent

no.1 instead of receiving the application from the petitioner,

could have referred the same to the Task Force. He lastly

submitted that the impugned order which is per se illegal and

contrary to the provisions of PMGEP cannot be sustained and

deserves to be quashed.

Per contra, Sri M.K. Srivastava, appearing for the respondents

has made his submissions in support of the impugned order.

Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the

material brought on record, we find that there is no dispute

about the fact that the petitioner has applied before DICs for

grant of loan online, copy whereof alongwith postal receipt and

all the required documents of the qualification for sanctioning

of the loan have been collectively filed as Annexure-2 to the

writ petition, on 2nd October, 2015, who had forwarded the

aforesaid application to respondent no.1 alongwith the

application dated 2nd October, 2015. By the impugned order

passed by respondent no.1, petitioner has been directed to move

his application through DIC under the PMEGP Scheme. Clause

11 of the PMEGP Scheme which governs the grant of such

loans reads as under :-

"11.Modalities of the operation of the

Scheme

(i) Project proposals will be invited from potential beneficiaries at district

level through press, advertisement, radio and other multi-media by KVIC,

KVIBs and DICs at periodical intervals depending on the target allotted to

that particular district. The scheme